BBO Daylong Tournament 1 - Apr 7, 2021 - Board 8

Board 8
Neither vulnerable

♠ 6 5 2  ♥ A Q 9 3  ♦ K Q 8  ♣ A K 3

Three passes to me. I open one club, partner bids one spade, and I bid two notrump. Partner bids three clubs, natural and forcing. With such good red-suit holdings, I see no reason to suggest a spade contract. I bid three notrump, which ends the auction.

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

West	North	East	South
Robot	Robot	Robot	Phillip
Pass	Pass	Pass	1 ♣
Pass	1 ♠	Pass	2 NT
Pass	3 ♣	Pass	3 NT
(All pass)

West leads the four of hearts. I have six top tricks and a diamond trick for seven. I need to develop two more. If the diamond ace is offside, the defense may be able to establish enough tricks to beat me once I give up the lead, so I would like to develop my two tricks without having to give up the lead twice. One possibility is to play for three-two clubs. Another is to play for the spade queen onside. 

Three-two clubs is more likely, but the heart blockage makes going after clubs awkward. Say I play three rounds of clubs and they knock out my diamond stopper. I now have nine tricks, but, unless the heart ten drops in three rounds, I have no way to take them. In fact, even if the diamond ace is onside, I could go down. Say they win the club and play ace and a diamond. I now have ten tricks, but it's not clear I can take even nine. I can't use the heart entry to get to dummy's clubs, else I have no way to get back to my hand. I have to try to reach dummy with a spade. If I misguess the suit, they can set up their diamonds.

Playing on spades is more promising. Say I play a club to my hand and a spade to the ten. If it loses to the ace, I have four hearts, two spades (assuming the East isn't being tricky with the ace-queen), two clubs, and a diamond. If the spade finesse loses to the queen, I will probably need to find the diamond ace onside. But if it is, I'm in good shape. I have four hearts, one spade, two clubs, two diamonds, and no entry problems. I'm not necessarily home-free, however. If they can set up two club tricks, they might be able to take five tricks before I can take nine.

What if I lead a spade to the ten and it holds? If I judge the spade queen is onside, I can unblock the hearts, play a club to my hand, and play a spade to the jack: four hearts, two spades, a diamond, and two clubs.

If I judge RHO might duck with the spade queen (or win with the ace holding ace-queen), this deal becomes more difficult. One possibility would be to forget the second spade finesse and go after clubs. Now that I have a spade trick, I will need only three heart tricks, so I can afford to overtake dummy's heart jack if necessary.

The bots aren't up to making deceptive plays for the purpose of deception, but they might stumble into them. If they think it makes no difference what they do, they might choose the deceptive play at random among apparently irrelevant choices. So, while they are less likely to make deceptive plays than an expert, they are probably more likely to make them than an average player, since they have no pre-conceptions about what's normal. In any event, there is no need to worry about that yet. If the spade ten holds or if it loses to the ace, I'll think about what to do then. It's clear attacking spades offers better chances than attacking clubs. That's all I need to know for now.

I win trick one with the heart king as East plays the deuce and I play the three. Both opponents have played their lowest heart. Now four of clubs from dummy--jack from East. The proper card to win with is the king. I probably wouldn't be playing this way with just the ace, so the ace advertises I have the king. If I play the king, the opponent without the queen may think I have king-queen instead of ace-king. West follows with the five. I haven't seen the deuce.

I play the spade five--ace--eight--nine. Well! That eliminates a lot of problematic variations. West continues with the space four. I doubt he is doing this with ace fourth, so it doesn't hurt to finesse. East wins with the queen, and I play the deuce. I now have eight tricks. A diamond will make nine, so my contract is safe. East shifts to the diamond three--queen--ace--four. West continues with the jack of diamonds, which suggests he has the nine. East follows with the five. Is there any chance for a tenth trick? Here is the current position: 

	NORTH Robot ♠ K J ♥ J ♦ -- ♣ 9 8 7 6
	SOUTH Phillip ♠ 6 ♥ A Q 9 ♦ 8 ♣ A 3

If the club jack was a singleton or doubleton, then West guards both minors. I don't have entries necessary for a squeeze. Can I persuade him to hold the wrong minor at trick thirteen? I'm going to cash the spades, pitching a minor-suit loser, then cash the heart jack and play a club to my ace to finish the hearts. If East shows out when I play a club to the ace, West will have a complete count and will know which minor to hold. So my only chance is that East holds a doubleton club. If he does, and I've pitched my club, then West will again have a complete count when I play a club to the ace. So my only chance is to discard my diamond. I play accordingly. It turns out East did have a singleton club, so I had no chance. Making three.

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

It occurs to me afterwards that I opened the bidding one club, so West knew I didn't have a doubleton and could never go wrong. At least he knew that in theory. I'm sure he's seen some of these clowns open their shorter minor and rebid 2NT. But I don't think these programs are heuristic, so he probably doesn't remember.

Plus 400 was again a better board than I would expect: 81.2%. Most declarers went down in three notrump by attacking clubs instead of spades.

My final score was 77.3%, finishing fourth out of 1011. A respectable showing, despite the fact I took none of the bizarre, swingy actions we saw from some of the other players. Nor, for that matter, did I do anything brilliant. If you go back and look at the results, the best boards were largely the result of mistakes made by the opponents. But we all had the same opponents. If my opponents made more mistakes than those at the other tables, it is because I gave them more opportunities to do so. Boards 1 and 6 are prime examples.

As we saw, some try to win by making bizarre decisions and hoping they work out. I don't think that's the winning strategy. My strategy is twofold: (1) Try to avoid making mistakes myself. (2) Give the opponents the opportunity to make mistakes as often as possible.

While it's true this strategy didn't quite translate into a win, it might have. All I had to do was to play a little bit tougher. If I had led and continued a diamond on Board 4, we might have beaten four spades, which would have been enough to nudge me into first place.