Event 3 - Match 3 - Board 5

Board 5
Our side vulnerable

♠ K Q ♥ K 10 8 5 2 ♦ J 7 ♣ A 10 9 4

Two passes to me. I open one heart, LHO bids one spade, and partner doubles. Some claim this double promises at least four-four in the minors. I don't think that's quite true. First of all, you might have a three-card limit raise in hearts. In addition, there are some awkward hands with a three-card minor where a negative double is the only call that makes sense. Take

♠ x x x x ♥ Q x ♦ A x x x ♣ K x x

for example. You could pass with this pattern if your hand were weaker. But this hand is too good to pass. What else can you do but double? If partner bids two clubs, you can continue with two hearts. Since you would bid three hearts with a three-card limit raise, this bid should show precisely a doubleton heart. I would consider this hand is a minimum for the sequence. You might have as much a two notrump rebid without a spade stopper.

RHO redoubles, showing the ace or king of spades. I bid two clubs. LHO and partner pass. RHO balances with two spades. I pass, LHO passes, and partner competes with three clubs. Everyone passes. LHO leads the jack of spades.

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

West	North	East	South
Nathanial	Jack	Marcus	Phillip
	Pass	Pass	1 ♥
1 ♠	Double1	Redouble2	2 ♣
Pass	Pass	2 ♠	Pass
Pass	3 ♣	(All pass)
1Negative double
2Spade ace or spade king

Partner's three club bid makes no sense. We don't necessarily need nine trumps to compete at three level when the opponents are at the two level. But, with four spades and a singleton in my primary suit, partner's hand is better for defense and worse for offense than is his typical hand on this auction.

RHO plays the ace, and I drop the queen, the card I'm known to hold. He continues with the four of spades to my king; West plays the deuce.

If I can score seven trump tricks on a crossruff, I'll make this. I need to start by ducking a heart. Clearly I would rather lose the heart trick on my left, so that the presumed trump shift rides around to my hand. I can then ruff a heart, ruff a spade, ruff a heart, ruff a spade, and ruff a heart with the club king. That's seven tricks. I need two more, and I still have the diamond ace and a high trump in my hand.

I may be able to increase my chance of ducking the heart to West if I play a diamond to the ace and a heart toward my hand. But releasing the diamond ace is a bad idea. I establish a winner for the opponents, I give the opponents communication, and I expose myself to a possible overruff. If I took the time, I'm sure I could find a specific layout where playing a diamond to the ace costs the contract, but I'm not going to bother. I'm rejecting it because it's bad strategy (sort of like putting your knight on the edge of the board).

West surely has the heart ace on the auction. Should I exit with the heart king? If I were sure West would play a trump, that would make sense. But what if he doesn't? Often the most effective way to scuttle a crossruff is to avoid leading trumps in order to retain the defense's middle cards. That may be the case here. If West wins the heart ace and plays a diamond, I have no clear route to seven trump tricks. Accordingly, I'd just as soon preserve the option of ruffing out ace third of hearts on my left. Besides, leading the heart ten may suffice to keep East off play. It may be hard for West to duck with ace-queen or even ace-jack.

I lead the heart ten. West plays the three, and East wins with the jack. Probably East has the queen also. I do wish I had the benefit of some table action. In real life, even one as table-presence-challenged as I am would have some clue as to whether that was the case or not. East shifts to the deuce of clubs. I play the ten. If this holds, I can crossruff as described above. If West covers, I will be in dummy, where I don't really want to be. But at least I will have flushed out the club queen, which may make things easier.

West does cover with the queen, and I win with dummy's king. This is the position I've reached, with the lead in dummy:

	NORTH Jack ♠ 9 7 ♥ -- ♦ A 5 4 3 ♣ J 7 5
	SOUTH Phillip ♠ -- ♥ K 8 5 2 ♦ J 7 ♣ A 9 4

Can I still crossruff? If I ruff a spade, ruff heart, ruff a spade, and ruff a heart, I'm stuck in dummy with no way to get to my hand to ruff the third heart. Perhaps if West began with ace third of hearts, I can establish hearts instead. Say I play a trump to my hand, ruff a heart, ruff a spade to my hand, and ruff another heart, dropping the ace. My hearts are now good, and I have one trump left with which to draw the remaining defensive trump. If I were in my hand, I could claim my contract. But, again, I'm stuck in dummy.

I don't usually present Gargoyle Chronicles hands as quizzes. But this is a good problem. If I didn't offer you a chance to test yourself, you would be annoyed with me. Under the assumption that West began with ace third of hearts, how do you play to take seven more tricks?
------

I don't know if this problem is actually difficult or if I just had a blind spot. But it took me longer than I care to admit to find the answer. Finally, it dawned on me that I didn't need to ruff two hearts in dummy. I can afford to lose two more tricks. So now that I've found the trump queen, I can afford to lose a heart trick. Why waste one of dummy's trumps ruffing with it when I desperately need it as an entry to my hand? The solution is to ruff a spade to my hand, then lead a low heart pitching dummy's last spade. If the defense plays another trump, I win in my hand, ruff a heart, hopefully dropping West's ace and establishing my suit. I can then return to my hand with dummy's carefully preserved trump. A red-suit switch by the defense does no better. And a spade switch allows me to ruff in dummy and pitch my diamond loser. See? I knew there was a reason not to release the diamond ace.

I play a spade from dummy. East pitches the nine of hearts. Oops. Time to reassess. That looks like queen-jack-nine of hearts, which gives West ace fourth. Actually that makes more sense than ace third on the auction. Holding four hearts would make West's light overcall more attractive. He probably would have led a singleton diamond (or East might have bid diamonds with six of them). So West is probably 5-4-2-2 or 5-4-3-1. The latter pattern I think I can safely ignore. I doubt I can make this against a bad trump break.

The ace isn't going to ruff out. But that's OK. I just need to make a slight adjustment to my plan. Instead of leading a low heart at this point, I need to lead the king, smothering East's queen and establishing my eight. If East did start with four hearts and has falsecarded with the nine, hearts are now two-two. So leading the king doesn't hurt anything.

I ruff the spade and lead the heart king. West plays the ace, I pitch dummy's last spade as planned, and East plays the heart queen. We have now reached this position, slightly different from the one I was envisioning,  with West on play. (I'm just guessing about the diamond honors. They don't really matter.)

	NORTH Jack ♠ -- ♥ -- ♦ A 5 4 3 ♣ J 7 5
WEST Nathanial ♠ 10 x ♥ 7 6 ♦ K x ♣ x		EAST Marcus ♠ -- ♥ -- ♦ Q x x x x ♣ x x
	SOUTH Phillip ♠ -- ♥ 8 5 2 ♦ J 7 ♣ A 9

West plays the eight of clubs. I win in my hand with the nine, ruff a heart with jack, and play a club to my ace. Making three.

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

In the analysis above, I glossed over what would happen if West played a spade, offering me a ruff-sluff. Would that accomplish anything for the defense? I ruff with dummy's five. If East overuffs, I have no problem. I overruff with the nine, ruff a heart with the jack, and play a trump back to my hand. If East refuses to overruff, I can pitch my diamond loser. I've lost control, so I can no longer establish and run hearts. But I don't need to. I need only five more tricks, so I can revert to a crossruff.

The crossruff works only because West has the club eight. If East had it, refusing to overruff dummy's club five would beat me. What an unusual position! You must refuse to overruff the five, allowing declarer his ruff-sluff, so that you can overruff the seven later. Thanks for overbidding, partner. I had much more fun playing this hand than I would have had collecting an easy down two against two spades.

East did make a serious error in pitching the nine of hearts. It cost nothing double dummy, since I could always make the hand by leading the heart king. But I wasn't intending to do that until he clued me in about the lie of the heart suit.

I don't know how the play went at the other table, but somehow my counterpart managed an overtrick in the same contract, cutting our lead in half.

Table 1: +110
Table 2: -130

Result on Board 5: -1 imp
Total: +1 imp


Post script:

Rainer Herrmann points out, "The plan in the quiz scenario should certainly be to ruff only one heart. But what do you actually accomplish by the artistry of ruffing a spade and ducking a heart first? Simply come to the club nine, ruff a heart and play dummy's last club to the trump ace. Now decide which heart honor is more likely to drop, having seen the heart nine from West, which could be a false card to give declarer a losing option."

He is correct. Not only does his solution allow you to delay your decision about the lie of the heart suit, it avoids the crossruff variation, which fails on best defense if East has the club eight. So why didn't I see that? I suppose it took me so long to think of not ruffing two hearts that I wore myself out, and I gave insufficient thought to the best way to reach my hand. My instinct said to ruff a spade to force East to discard, and I didn't stop to question my instinct.

Event 3 - Match 3 - Board 4

Board 4
Both sides vulnerable

♠ A 6 4 ♥ 4 3 ♦ 8 6 4 ♣ A K Q 10 3

RHO opens one heart in third seat. I can double or I can overcall two clubs. Two clubs can make it a little harder to find a spade fit, but double leaves the main feature of my hand on the shelf. Two clubs also makes it easier for me to reenter the auction if the bidding dies at a low level. Suppose, for example, I double and the auction continues two hearts--pass--pass back to me. Now what? I'm not comfortable selling out. But three clubs would show a considerably better hand than I have. If I bid clubs first, however, I can compete with a re-opening double.

I bid two clubs. LHO bids two hearts, and partner bids three clubs. RHO bids three hearts. I pass, and LHO goes on to four hearts. I guess three hearts was invitational. Not many pairs play that way.

In some partnerships, I could lead the club queen to request count at trick one. Jack doesn't play that convention, however, so I lead the club ace.

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

West	North	East	South
Phillip	Nathanial	Jack	Marcus
	Pass	Pass	1 ♥
2 ♣	2 ♥	3 ♣	3 ♥
Pass	4 ♥	(All pass)

Partner plays the four; declarer, the nine. If a second club is cashing, I need one trick from partner. If he has a trump trick, the diamond ace, or the queen of spades (doubleton or third), there is nothing I need to do. But if he has king-queen of diamonds, I may need to switch to a diamond before my spade ace is knocked out.

If the second club isn't cashing, I need two tricks from partner. In that case, I may need to go after a spade ruff. If partner has a doubleton spade and the trump ace, I need to switch to a spade at trick two.

I was right that what I needed was a count signal. If declarer has two clubs, my best defense is (A) to cash the second club and play a diamond. If he has a singleton club, my best defense is (B) to play a low spade. Note that an obvious-shift attitude signal would not help. Partner, not knowing he needs two diamond honors for a shift to be productive, would discourage any time he has the king or queen. This would work just fine if I had a diamond honor too. Then I could adopt (A) if partner discourages and (B) if he doesn't. But, with the hand I hold, an attitude signal does not tell me what I need to know.

Jack's I-don't-have-a-club-honor signal, as usual, is no help at all. So I must simply choose the defense that works most often. For (A) to be right, I need declarer to have a doubleton club. Less obviously, I need him to have six hearts, If he has only five, he doesn't have enough pitches to get rid of all his diamonds, and there is no need for a diamond switch. That means declarer must be x-6-y-2. For (B) to be right, I need declarer to have a singleton club,and I need partner to have a doubleton spade and a doubleton ace of hearts. That gives declarer specifically 4-5-3-1.

Since (B) requires declarer to have a specific pattern and (A) requires a range of patterns, (A) is more likely to be right. It may appear that the high-card constraints counterbalanace that. (B) requires partner to have one high card (the heart ace) while (A) requires partner to have two (the king and queen of diamonds). But that's an illusion. Partner has more diamonds than hearts, so he is more likely to hold diamond honors than to hold heart honors. I won't bore you with the calculations. But it turns out partner is actually more likely to hold the king-queen of diamonds than to hold the heart ace. So (A) is a standout, at least on an a priori basis.

Of course, I've completely ignored the fact that South chose to bid three hearts over three clubs. Does the three heart bid itself suggest a singleton club? If I adopt (A), I'm playing declarer for something like

♠ Q x ♥ A K J x x x ♦ A x x ♣ x x

Three hearts would make more sense if it were competitive rather than invitational. But I don't see any reason that hand is any less likely than, say,

♠ Q x x x ♥ K J x x x ♦ A K x ♣ x,

which is a pretty thin three-heart bid whatever it means. So I'm sticking with (A).

Now that I've decided to shift to a diamond, does it matter whether I cash the club king first or not? It can't hurt to try to cash it. If the club gets ruffed, a diamond shift wasn't doing any good anyway. And not cashing it might give me a problem, since I won't be sure how many tricks I need elsewhere.

I play the club king. Partner follows with the five, and declarer ruffs with the five of hearts. Declarer plays the six of hearts--three--queen--ten. Then the deuce of hearts--jack--ace--four. How about that? Jack played the suit correctly. He guarded against the one four-zero break he could handle.

He plays the deuce of spades--four--nine--three. It appears declarer is 3-5-4-1. Unless partner has the ace-king of diamonds, we're not beating this. Declarer plays the five of diamonds--three--king. Making four.

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

Declarer was on a diamond guess. He apparently played partner for the diamond ace because he assumed I had the spade ace. But couldn't partner have ducked the spade ace? Declarer should have led the five of spades (Rule 2 for scrambling count signals ) to the king. It would be much harder for partner to duck now. From partner's perspective, declarer might have two small spades and might have just misguessed. In fact, to make this maneuver more convincing, declarer might do that at trick three, trusting us to have found a spade ruff already if one was available. It's true that if hearts were four-zero, he might regret wasting that dummy entry. But a four-zero trump break seems unlikely on the auction. I think the danger of misguessing diamonds is more pressing. As it is, the diamonds were misguess-proof.

South made a rather aggressive three heart call, apparently spurred on by his singleton club. The opponents probably would not have reached game had I passed or doubled instead of overcalling two clubs. Sometimes it seems that the worst time to bid is when your hand is pure. If all your cards are working, then all the opponents' cards are working also, and bidding just pushes them into a making game or slam that they would not have bid on their own. Perhaps two clubs is wrong. We probably can't outbid the opponents in clubs, so finding a club fit may help them more than it helps us. Maybe double, trying to find a fit where we can actually outbid them, is a better idea.

I'm not yet prepared to reach that conclusion. But I will certainly be on the look-out for additional deals involving this principle. I may change my strategy in the future. One of the things that makes bridge a difficult game to learn is that the feedback is imperfect. If you get a bad result, you can't be sure whether you did something wrong or were just unlucky. So it's easy to keep making the same mistakes over and over. To improve, you need to be continually evaluating your actions, and you need a long memory. I'm pretty good on the evaluating part. Sadly, my memory isn't what it used to be. The truth is, in a couple of weeks I'll probably have forgotten about this deal. If I do this again with a similar bad result, could you please remind me?

Luckily, our teammates reach game as well. The board is a push.

Table 1: -620
Table 2: +620

Result on Board 4: 0 imps
Total: +2 imps

Event 3 - Match 3 - Board 3

Board 3
Opponents vulnerable

♠ Q J 9 ♥ J 10 7 ♦ A 4 3 ♣ A 8 7 4

I open one notrump (12-14). Partner bids two hearts (a transfer to spades), and I bid two spades. Partner bids three hearts, a game force showing at least five-five in the majors. Even though I have a minimum in high cards, this is a terrific hand, especially given that I am limited by my failure to pre-accept. I have fillers in both of partner's suits and aces opposite his short suits. Even the distribution is a plus. While "4333" is often a poor distribution, it is actually a good distribution opposite a two-suiter. Despite what various point-count systems may tell you, when partner has two five-card or longer suits, it is usually better to be three-three in those suits than to be three-two (and much better than to be three-one). So I bid four spades to show extras.

Even if you generally play fast arrival (which I don't), fast-arrival should not apply when showing a preference. A simple preference can't promise support and a good hand, because it must frequently be made with a doubleton as a mark-time bid. Still, you need some way to show extras below game. Since the simple preference is not available for that purpose, it makes sense to assign that role to the jump preference. It is true that, in this particular auction (because opener is known to be balanced and because the three heart bid promises five), these considerations don't apply. Opener has no reason to bid three spades with a doubleton, so you could play fast arrival if you chose to. But ad hoc exceptions make me nervous. Since a jump preference should show extras in most auctions, you are less apt to have an accident if you make that a general rule.

Partner passes four spades, and LHO leads the jack of diamonds.

	NORTH Jack ♠ A K 5 3 2 ♥ K 9 8 5 3 ♦ Q 8 ♣ 3
	SOUTH Phillip ♠ Q J 9 ♥ J 10 7 ♦ A 4 3 ♣ A 8 7 4

West	North	East	South
Nathanial	Jack	Marcus	Phillip
			1 NT
Pass	2 ♥1	Pass	2 ♠
Pass	3 ♥2	Pass	4 ♠
(All pass)
1Jacoby transfer
2Forcing to game with at least five-five in the majors

I play the diamond queen and East covers with the king. It appears I must lose a diamond trick and potentially two hearts tricks. As long as trumps are three-two, I'm cold. If they aren't, I probably need to find the heart queen onside, so I can establish hearts by losing the lead only once. Otherwise, I will be tapped out.

Ducking the diamond to deprive the opponents of communication seems like a good idea, although it's not entirely safe. If East shifts to a heart, and West takes the ace and continues hearts, I will duck, assuming the shift was from a singleton. If East has queen third, he can win and give his partner a ruff, and I will go down in a cold contract. But if East is clever enough to find that shift, he deserves to beat me. These communication-killing ducks are frequently necessary for reasons you can't foresee at trick one. So it's a good idea to deploy them as a matter of routine unless you see a serious danger.

I play the diamond three. East continues with the five of diamonds--ace--six--eight. The deuce is missing. Probably East began with king-five-deuce.

I cash the spade queen. (Not the jack. As a general rule, declarer should conceal his jacks when possible. If I lead the queen, neither opponent knows where the jack is. If I lead the jack and it holds, at least one and possibly both opponents will know I have the queen.) West plays the ten; East, the four.

The ten looks suspiciously like a singleton. If so, is there anything to gain by abandoning trumps and playing on hearts right away? Maybe. Suppose I play a heart to the king and it holds. Now I'm home. I concede a heart. They tap dummy. I concede a second heart. If they don't tap dummy again, I can claim. If they do, I have a high cross ruff.

That's fine if West ducks when I lead a heart. But what if he hops and plays another heart? If I finesse, I go down when the spade ten was a falsecard and East has queen third of hearts. If I go up, I go down when East has a singleton heart. There is no way I can guarantee success whenever the ace is onside. So this line is worse than 50%, and it's better to stick with my original plan of playing West for the heart queen.

I might as well draw one more round of trumps, just in case the ten was a falsecard. I cash the jack of spades, and West pitches the deuce of clubs. I can't afford to draw the third round of trumps. I might need the spade nine as a hand entry. For example, suppose West has ace-queen fourth of hearts. I lead a heart honor, West hops, and plays another diamond. I can ruff high, play a spade to my nine, and float the other honor. East ruffs with his last trump, and I have a reentry with the club ace to repeat the heart finesse. Note, by the way, that I would be unable to cater to ace-queen fourth of hearts onside if I had not ducked the first diamond. If I draw the third round of trumps, I'm short an entry to my hand. If I don't, West can hop with the heart ace, give his partner a ruff, then gain the lead with the diamond ten for a second ruff. I don't claim credit for seeing this at trick one, but I didn't have to. It's enough to know that depriving the opponents of communication is a good idea on principle.

Which heart honor should I lead from my hand? Again, declarer should conceal his jacks when possible. (Just think of all the times you, as defender, told yourself, "If I only knew who had the jack of hippogriffs, I would know exactly what to do.") In this suit, for example, if it were necessary for West to hop with the ace, leading the ten would make it harder for him to do so. If West has the queen, hopping may cost a trick by force (if his partner holds a singleton jack). And, if he doesn't have the queen, hopping may take a guess away. (I may hold queen-ten and be fishing for the jack.) In this particular layout, I don't have any specific objective in mind in concealing the jack. I'm just following best practices.

I lead the ten. West plays the ace, and East follows with the four. I have just explained how leading the ten makes it harder for West to play the ace. So the ace is an unexpected play. What can he possibly have to making hopping look like the right move? I can think of only one hand that makes sense:

♠ 10 ♥ A x ♦ J 10 6 ♣ K J 10 x x x x

Now, if he allows his partner to gain the lead before he does, he will be unable to continue the tap when he gets in with the heart ace. Somehow, though, I don't think this is what West has. He must have some other reason for hopping that hasn't occurred to me.

West plays the six of hearts. I can stop worrying about what West has now. If I play low on this trick, I can't go down. I play low, East wins with the queen, and I claim.

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

This was not a spectacular defense. West can beat me by force by ducking the heart. Even after hopping with the ace, he will probably beat me if he continues diamonds. I can make it if I drop the heart queen. But unless I can figure out a reason for West to hop with ace third of hearts, I don't see why I would do that. Even looking at his hand, I can't figure out why he hopped.

Speaking of not being able to figure out the opponents' actions, why did East lead the five of diamonds at trick two? Was that systemic or was he just randomizing his spot cards? If I had needed a count on this deal, I probably would have gotten it wrong. For the remainder of the match, I need to keep in mind that the opponents might not card as I would expect them to.

The board is a push. I suspect our opponents played four spades from the North hand. And they probably got a diamond lead, killing any chance the defense might have. We were lucky Nathanial lived up to his name. This board should have been a loss for our system.

Table 1: +420
Table 2: -420

Result on Board 3: 0 imps
Total: +2 imps

Event 3 - Match 3 - Board 2

Board 2
Our side vulnerable

♠ 5 4 2 ♥ Q 9 ♦ A K 9 8 6 ♣ Q 8 5

RHO passes. Two and a half honor tricks with a good five card suit is an opening bid as far as I'm concerned. I open one notrump (12-14). Partner bids two hearts, a transfer to spades. I bid two spades, and partner splinters with four diamonds. I sign off in four spades, and partner bids four notrump, Roman Keycard Blackwood. I bid five diamonds, showing one keycard, and partner bids seven spades. Despite being shy one high-card point, this hand can't be a disappointment to partner. The king of diamonds is duplication, but at least it's a cashing trick. And both my queens are working. In addition, I have a third spade. Given my signoff over the splinter, this is a huge hand.

West leads the three of diamonds. Their convention card says "low encouraging" versus suits. The three looks pretty low, so I guess I should be encouraged.

	NORTH Jack ♠ A K Q 9 6 3 ♥ A K 8 7 6 ♦ -- ♣ A J
	SOUTH Phillip ♠ 5 4 2 ♥ Q 9 ♦ A K 9 8 6 ♣ Q 8 5

West	North	East	South
Nathanial	Jack	Marcus	Phillip
		Pass	1 NT
Pass	2 ♥1	Pass	2 ♠
Pass	4 ♦2	Pass	4 ♠
Pass	4 NT3	Pass	5 ♦4
Pass	7 ♠	(All pass)
1Jacoby-transfer
2Splinter
3Ace asking for spades
41 or 4 aces

Assuming trumps come home, I have twelve top tricks. If trumps are two-two, I can ruff a heart for the thirteenth trick. If not, I have three-three hearts or squeeze chances to fall back on. My squeeze chances will improve if I can isolate the diamond stopper. Ruffing one diamond will do that unless the suit splits four-four. In addition, letting this lead ride to my hand will isolate the stopper in the unlikely event that West has led from two honors fourth.

I pitch a heart from dummy. East plays the jack (presumably from queen-jack), and I win with the ace, the card I'm known to hold.

West's failure to lead a trump is suspicious. The diamond lead risked giving me a trick. What if I had held the diamond jack instead of East, for example? True, after Blackwood, West wasn't expecting a diamond void in dummy. But even if dummy had a singleton, the diamond lead might take a finesse for me that I wouldn't be inclined to take myself. A diamond lead makes some sense if he wants me to use my hand entries early, and a bad trump break is one reason he might want to do that.

I can handle a four-zero trump break by taking a double finesse at trick two. But I'm hesitant to place that much stock in this inference. Do I have any chance if I cash a high spade first? After cashing the spade, I can lead a heart to the queen for one finesse, but then I'm out of hand entries except for a heart ruff. And if I ruff a heart, I have no trumps left with which to take a finesse. This is exactly why the diamond lead makes sense with four trumps. If dummy did have a diamond, a diamond might well be the only lead to beat me.

It appears the only way I can pick up jack-ten fourth of trumps is to take a finesse now, but I'm not willing to do that. I just don't have that much respect for Jack's opening leads. So I proceed with the plan of trying to isolate the diamond stopper. I lead the nine of diamonds. West plays the ten. I ruff with the six of spades (retaining a spade lower than my five on principle, though I can't imagine how it will ever make a difference). East follows with the diamond deuce.

Now I'm worried. Why would West cover with the ten unless he held the queen as well? If he did lead a diamond from such a dangerous holding, the odds of a four-zero trump break have gone way up. (Although he should have led the queen rather than low. The queen might trap a stiff jack in dummy, or it might prevent a squeeze by allowing East to retain his jack.)

I cash the spade ace--seven--deuce--eight. Whew! On the spade king, East pitches the deuce of clubs. So I could have afforded a spade finesse at trick two after all, even though I was wrong about four-zero trumps. I'm sure the table would have found that amusing.

I don't have the communication for a minor-suit squeeze. So my only choice is a simple-played-as-double, with hearts as the double threat. Since dummy has two winners in the double-threat suit (what Clyde E. Love called a Type B₂ squeeze), the squeeze plays itself. I cash the club ace, run trumps, play a heart to the queen, and cash the ace-king of diamonds. There is no squeeze, because hearts were three-three all along. Making seven.

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

Partner's auction was pointless. The information gained both from the spinter and from Blackwood was of no use to him. How should he have bid his hand? One possibility is just to bid seven spades over one notrump. But I think I can do a little better than that. I suspect that I'm quite willing to play a grand (1) any time partner has the heart queen or (2) any time partner has four spades. (If he has four spades, I'll take my chances that he doesn't have three small hearts.) In all other cases, I'd just as soon avoid a grand. I might still make one if partner has enough winners to allow me to pitch all my hearts, but that will be hard to diagnose.

With that in mind, I'd start with two clubs, intending to raise two spades to seven. On the given hand, partner will bid two diamonds. I now need to set hearts as trump, so I can bid keycard Blackwood and find out about the queen of hearts. I can do that by bidding three spades (Smolen), ostensibly showing four spades and longer hearts. If partner bids four hearts, I can bid Blackwood immediately. If he bids three notrump (as he would on this hand), I can transfer to hearts via four diamonds and bid Blackwood. Now I can bid seven spades if he shows the "trump" queen and six spades if he doesn't.

How's that for a plan? Of course, if I wind up signing off in six spades, I'm counting on partner to realize that I was just kidding about having only four spades. Will he work that out? Or will he think hearts is agreed, so six spades must be forcing - some kind of last-train grand try with six notrump as the resting spot? To find out, I tried another bridgewinners.com poll. Everyone appeared to interpret six spades as an attempt to play there, although almost no one was willing to abandon the idea that partner has more hearts than spades. I'm not sure why. Once you conclude that partner took this auction to find out about the heart queen, it seems to me that any descriptive content of his auction becomes suspect. All you really know about partner's hand is that he is willing to play six spades if you don't have the heart queen and has something else in mind if you do.

In the poll, I did not use the actual South hand. For one thing, I needed to remove the heart queen, so partner would attempt to sign off in six spades. Also, to add a little more interest, I gave South jack-ten third of spades and two small hearts. I was curious to see how many would raise six spades to seven, concluding that the ability to ruff two hearts high had to be just as good as holding the heart queen. A little over 20% reached that conclusion.

Our opponents stopped in six spades at the other table, so we pick up 13 imps and surge into the lead.

Table 1: +2210
Table 2: -1460

Result on Board 2: +13 imps
Total: +2 imps