Event 3 - Match 4 - Board 4

Board 4
Both sides vulnerable

♠ Q 10 8 7 6 ♥ K ♦ A 7 5 2 ♣ Q 10 7

Three passes to me. I have less defense than normal for a fourth-seat opening bid. But it seems weird to pass out a hand with five spades if it's even close. So I open one spade.

LHO passes. Partner raises to four spades. Now I'm glad I opened. I seem to have caught a good fit. Everyone passes, and LHO leads the ace of clubs.

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

West	North	East	South
Harry	Jack	William	Phillip
Pass	Pass	Pass	1 ♠
Pass	4 ♠	(All pass)

Oh, come on, partner. There is no passed hand that can raise one spade to four with only three trumps. To make this I need to pick up the trumps and avoid a diamond loser. To avoid the diamond loser, I need a favorable lie of the diamond suit or the heart queen ruffing out or a red-suit squeeze.

East plays the club five, and I play the seven. West continues with the club king, and East plays the six, and I play the ten. Apparently the five was East's lowest club, so West has the four and the deuce. He might have the spade ace. But, if he does, he must have at least three spades. If he has two short suits, he would have opened with ace-king-ace. And if spades is his only short suit, he would have doubled one spade.

West shifts to the four of diamonds. There goes the red-suit squeeze. West can't know enough about the deal to be playing a diamond for that reason, though. So why is he playing a diamond? If he had the spade ace, a heart shift, trying to set up his partner's king, would make more sense. (I'm not saying it's the correct defense. Just that it would make sense, which, as declarer, is all I care about.) The most logical reason for playing a diamond is that West is trying for two side-suit tricks rather than just one, which means he can't have the spade ace. He is playing me for something like.

♠ A Q x x x ♥ K Q x ♦ x x ♣ Q 10 x

I play the six, East plays the jack, and I win with the ace. East could be falsecarding with queen-jack-nine. But if he is, I'm down. So I have to hope that's not the case. Could West have shifted from queen-nine third or fourth of diamonds? Maybe. It would be right if I had the above hand. But that's an awfully unattractive shift with king-ten-eight fourth in dummy. I have seen Jack shift to middle from three small before. So it's also possible he has nine third, giving East queen-jack tight. If I had to commit myself right now, that's what I would guess.

What's my best play in spades? There is no need to worry about four-one breaks just yet. I'll start by finding the play that picks up the most three-two breaks. Only if there is a tie I will need to consider four-one breaks.

The three-two breaks I need to worry about are

(1) ♠ x x		♠ A J x
(2) ♠ J x		♠ A x x
(3) ♠ J x x		♠ A x

(I'll ignore ace-jack doubleton on my right, since any sensible play works in that case.) Since there are three ways to arrange the spot cards in each of these layouts, each case is equally likely, which simplifies the analysis.

Possible ways to play the suit include: (A) Low to the king, then finesse the ten. (B) Low to the king, then low to the queen. (C) Low to the queen, then low toward dummy, ducking if the jack does not appear. (A) picks up case (1), (B) picks up case (2), and (C) picks up both case (2) and case (3). (C) is the clear winner. Since I do have the spade eight, there are some weird intra-finesse lines available as well, but I needn't concern myself with them. Nothing is going to pick up all three cases, so I can't improve on (C).

How should I reach dummy? I'd just as soon postpone my decision in diamonds. I don't need two heart tricks, and I no longer have the communication to score three heart tricks even if the queen is ruffing out. So I might as well overtake my heart king. I play the king of hearts--five--ace--deuce.

I play the spade three. East plays the ace--six--four. That doesn't look good. That looks like a stiff ace. East tries to cash the heart queen. Now there's an optimist for you! I ruff with the seven, and West follows with the six of hearts.

I play the spade eight--jack--king--deuce. Yay! I could get an accurate count in hearts by cashing the heart jack and ruffing a heart. But West's spade jack could be a falsecard. I'm not sure how count in hearts would help, since I don't have count in clubs, so it doesn't seem worth the risk. I play a spade to my queen. East follows with the nine, and West discards the club deuce. On the last spade, West pitches the three of diamonds. I pitch the diamond eight from dummy, and East pitches the club eight. Now the club queen--four--heart four--club jack. We are down to this position:

	NORTH Jack ♠ -- ♥ J ♦ K 10 ♣ --
	SOUTH Phillip ♠ -- ♥ -- ♦ 7 5 2 ♣ --

The moment of truth. I play a diamond, and West plays the nine. Either he is 2-3-4-4 and switched to the four of diamonds from queen-nine-four-three or he is 2-4-3-4 and played middle from nine-four-three.

Against a human, I would go up with the king with no hesitation. People just don't shift from queen-nine fourth with king-ten-eight fourth in the dummy. But computers don't have such prejudices. If Jack thinks it is the right play, he'll do it. He doesn't care how foolish it looks when it fails. And it certainly could be the right play. There is no reason I couldn't have the hand I mentioned earlier.

Often, when trying to decide between two hands a defender might hold, you can gain some insight by switching your focus to the defender's partner. Perhaps he did something to give the show away. East did do something very peculiar in hopping with the spade ace from ace-nine third and trying to cash the heart queen. He must have had some reason for this play, since, if his partner held jack-ten doubleton of spades, hopping with the spade ace would hand me the contract. Of course the play was foolish, since it's impossible for me to have a small heart. But remember Jack draws no conclusions from declarer's line of play.

Let's sit in the East seat and try to think like a computer for a moment. Let's imagine we think the heart queen might be cashing. Even so, what's the hurry? Can't we afford to duck the trump ace? We can if we had a singleton diamond. But perhaps not if we have queen-jack doubleton. Say declarer began with ace-nine doubleton of diamonds. We duck the spade ace, declarer wins in his hand and plays a diamond to the king, dropping our queen. He then plays the ten of diamonds. We must ruff low. Declarer overruffs, ruffs a club to dummy, and plays the eight of diamonds, pitching his heart loser as we ruff with the spade ace.

Yes, I know this makes no sense at all to us. But it makes sense to a computer with no ability to draw inferences. East would not rise with the spade ace unless there were a hand where ducking would allow me to score the contract. And that can only be true if he has queen-jack doubleton of diamonds.

I rise with the diamond king, and East follows with the queen. Making four.

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

I'm rather happy with this result. The other table might not reach game and might well go down if they do. It is quite a disappointment, therefore, to discover that this board is a push. We are still down ten imps with only four boards to go. It's hard to make any headway in this match.

Table 1: +620
Table 2: -620

Result on Board 4: 0 imps
Total: -10 imps