The Gargoyle Chronicles: Event 3 - Match 4

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Event 3 - Match 4 - Board 1

Board 1
Neither vulnerable

♠ 9 8 6 2 ♥ 9 5 4 2 ♦ K 9 7 6 2 ♣ --

Partner opens one spade, and RHO overcalls two clubs. I wish I could bid three spades, but partner insists on playing that as a limit raise rather than as pre-emptive. Four spades seems a bit much with eight losers. so I settle for two spades. LHO bids five clubs, and everyone passes.

If partner has the spade ace, the trick probably isn't going away. And cashing it now may simply set up discards in dummy. As I've said before, it can be dangerous to lead a nine-card fit when you are missing the middle honors. Diamonds looks like a better choice. If my king of diamonds is not working on defense, we probably aren't beating this, so why not hope it is working and act accordingly?

Since I have an entryless hand, I have to consider leading the king to try to retain the lead, but I don't have to consider it very long. It's hard to see why I need to be on lead at trick two. And if partner has the diamond queen rather than the ace, I surely want to lead low, since we don't want partner to have the sole guard in every suit. Accordingly, I lead the diamond deuce.

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

West	North	East	South
Phillip	Harry	Jack	William
		1 ♠	2 ♣
2 ♠	5 ♣	(All pass)

I don't think we have much chance of beating this. Partner wins the diamond ace; declarer drops the three. Partner returns the diamond eight, and declarer plays the five. The eight cannot be partner's highest card, since declarer would have covered. The only holding consistent with the eight is ace-queen-ten-eight, giving declarer jack-five-three. So declarer's shape seems to be 0-4-3-6 or 0-3-3-7. None of our tricks can go away. Either partner has the heart king or he doesn't. Either he has a trump trick or he doesn't. I can go back to sleep now.

Declarer ruffs in dummy, draws two rounds of trumps, and claims. Making six.

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

How about that? I made the right lead for a change. I stopped the second overtrick.

Since the opponents have a wasted ace - not to mention a wasted queen and two wasted jacks - it seems they should have come a little closer to reaching slam. Obviously three spades by North is a better start than five clubs. But would that work? South has two features to show: his second suit and his spade void. He must decide which is more important. If he bids four hearts, North will bid a slam. If he bids four spades, North probably won't. Or if he does, it's just a lucky decision. He would also be reaching slam opposite the same hand with the red suits reversed.

Our teammates did not reach slam either, though they apparently received more aggressive interference than we gave our opponents. They wound up defending five spades doubled and dropped a trick, beating it only one. We lose eight imps.

How did they drop a trick? I can't say for sure, but I can guess. Suppose the defense starts with a club, ruffed low in dummy. Dummy now leads the spade six. North, thinking declarer is psychic and is about to let the six ride, covers with the seven. Declarer wins with jack, discovering the bad break. He ruffs another club and leads dummy's last spade, the nine. North ducks, and declarer lets the nine hold. To get to his hand to continue trumps, declarer must play a diamond. Then, when he leads a trump to North's ace, North can recover his trump trick by taking a diamond ruff. He plays ace, queen of hearts, expecting South to overtake and give him his ruff. But will he? South must decide whether to overtake and play a diamond or to duck, playing declarer for

♠ K Q J x x x ♥ J x x ♦ A 10 ♣ x x

Or perhaps even to overtake and play a heart, playing declarer for

♠ K Q J x x ♥ J x x ♦ A Q 10 ♣ x x

It does seem there are clues enabling him to get this right. But apparently he didn't. Can North help him out? If South has managed to signal possession of he heart king, North might try the effect of leading jack, queen of hearts. Once South knows for sure declarer has a doubleton heart, he has no reason not to overtake and play a diamond.

Why jack, queen rather than queen, jack? In this deal, it doesn't matter. Partner should do the right thing however you card. But you should still play jack, queen just to reassure partner for the sake of future deals that you know how to signal.

As a general rule, playing your cards in a non-standard order is an alarm clock, waking partner up to the fact that something unusual is going on, frequently that you are ruffing something. If there were any ambiguity, your decision to employ or not to employ an alarm clock is how you would resolve that ambiguity.

For example, take this layout:

	NORTH ♥ x x x
WEST ♥ x x x		EAST ♥ A Q J x
	SOUTH ♥ K x x

You want to take three heart tricks, then lead a fourth round for a trump promotion. So you lead queen, jack, hoping declarer misplaces the ace and ducks twice, trying to block the suit. If you are wrong about the location of the king and partner has it, no harm done. At least no harm done unless partner decides you are trying to put him on play for a ruff and overtakes the jack. He knows not to do that, however, if he can be confident you would play jack, queen as an alarm clock if that is what you wanted.

Table 1: -420
Table 2: +100

Result on Board 1: -8 imps
Total: -8 imps

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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, January 22, 2012

Event 3 - Match 4 - Board 1

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