ACBL Daylong 1 - Jul 29, 2021 - Board 1

Board 1
Neither vulnerable

This is an ACBL tournament, not a BBO tournament, so it will consist of twelve boards rather than eight. I like that a little better, since you don't feel as if you are out of the running if you have one bad board early on. There should be over 1000 participants.

♠ A 7 6  ♥ A Q 9  ♦ A K Q J 10 6  ♣ 3

Partner opens one club, and RHO passes. The robots play strong jump shifts at the two-level, but this hand is too good for that. A strong jump shift should be a slam invitation, a hand where you want to show your slam interest, then subside and leave the decision to partner. Hands in that range are difficult to bid any other way. When you have a hand where you will probably drive to slam, there is nothing to gain by jump shifting. You are better off leaving partner room to describe his hand. In short, you should jump shift only if you are willing to surrender captaincy. If you wish to retain control of the auction, you should bid more slowly.

I bid one diamond, and partner rebids one heart. I bid one spade, which the robots play as artificial and game forcing.

Partner raises to three spades. Two spades would show four spades. Three spades shows four spades and extra values. This is one of the benefits of a slow auction. After a jump shift, it is hard for opener to show extras. As the auction has developed, I now know we are in grand slam territory. It would be difficult to discern this had I started with two diamonds, depriving partner of his opportunity to jump.

Four notrump at this point ostensibly agrees spades, but that's OK, because I can always correct to notrump. It's actually convenient that spades is the implied trump suit, because it gives me a chance to find out about the king and queen of spades. 

I bid four notrump, and partner responds five hearts. So he has the club ace and spade king but no queen of spades. That's only seven HCP. He should have at least fourteen for his three-spade bid, so there is a good chance he has the heart king. 

I bid five notrump, and partner bids six clubs, showing the club king. That's  ten HCP. He needs four more. Even if he doesn't have the heart king, seven notrump has to be OK. He would need the club queen and a couple of jacks. Seven notrump can't be worse than a finesse and could be much better, so I bid it. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have bothered with five notrump.

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

West	North	East	South
Robot	Robot	Robot	Phillip
	1 ♣	Pass	1 ♦
Pass	1 ♥	Pass	1 ♠
Pass	3 ♠	Pass	4 NT
Pass	5 ♥	Pass	5 NT
Pass	6 ♣	Pass	7 NT
(All pass)

Hmm. Partner didn't have extras after all.That looks more like a two spade bid to me. Maybe partner thinks he's supposed to bid three spades any time he has a stiff diamond--that two spades should show a 4-4-2-3. Even so, this is a good contract, at least at matchpoints. Since almost everyone rates to be in at least six notrump, we want to bid the grand if it is better than even money, which it is.

West leads the ten of clubs. I doubt he is leading from queen-ten-nine against seven notrump, so I suspect the queen and jack of clubs are on my right. I have eleven cashing tricks. If the spade queen is onside, I have thirteen. I also have two potential tricks in the heart suit. 

One possibility is to lead the heart jack from dummy, assuming East will cover if the has the king. If he does cover, that gives me twelve tricks. Then I have two ways to look for a thirteenth. I can cash the heart queen, trying to drop the ten, and fall back on guessing the spade queen if that fails. Or I can try to drop a doubleton queen of spades, falling back on finessing the heart nine if that fails.

The problem with leading the heart jack is it's not clear how often East will cover. He certain won't cover with king empty fifth, since he might crash his partner's stiff queen, and he might be worried about covering with king fourth. I think I'm better off just running the diamonds and hoping to read the end position. The robots aren't good at deceptive discarding. Unless something better presents itself, my plan will be to play West for the spade queen. But their discarding may persuade me to try something else.

I win with the club ace; East plays the eight. I start running the diamonds. I want to keep one small club in dummy as long as possible. The opponents don't know about my singleton club. If clubs are four-four, each opponent may think he is the only one who can guard the suit. So I will pitch one club, then three hearts, and, finally, the last club. 

On the first two rounds of diamonds, both opponents echo. East plays seven-three; West, nine-five. On the next two rounds, West follows with the deuce, then eight of diamonds, and East pitches the five of hearts and the deuce of clubs. One would expect East's first pitch to be from his five-card suit if he has one, pitching his lowest card to give count. The heart five can't be lowest from a five-card suit, so East is probably 4432. After his club pitch, I know he began with four clubs, since he is known to hold the queen and jack. So his pattern rates to be 4-3-2-4 or 3-4-2-4. 

On the next diamond, West pitches the deuce of spades; East, the four of hearts. It's so nice to have the opponents discard honest count cards. This would be a much trickier deal against humans. West's spade deuce is presumably from a three-card suit, so I now know that East was 3-4-2-4. I still don't know where the spade queen is, however. West would have no hesitation pitching from queen third, because, from his point of view, his queen is doomed anyway. 

On the last diamond, West pitches the five of clubs; East, the heart ten. The ten? Did East just stiff his onside king of hearts? That makes sense. While West can afford to pitch from queen third of spades, East can't. If I don't have a side dummy entry, I can take only three spade tricks if he holds all his spades, but I can take four tricks if he pitches one. And he wants to hold his queen jack of clubs in case I began with three clubs. Hearts is the only suit he can afford to pitch.

I cash the heart ace. If the king drops, I have the rest. If it doesn't, I have to hope West has the spade queen. It drops. Making seven.

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

I made an error in discarding from dummy. If West has ten-nine fourth of clubs, he needs to retain his clubs in case his partner has jack doubleton. But that's only true if I keep four clubs in dummy. I should have held all of dummy's clubs as long as possible, pitching three hearts, then two clubs. I was thinking too generically. I should have thought more specifically about West's potential problem.

Seven notrump making is worth 96%. Out of 59 pairs, eight other pairs reached seven notrump, but only five of them made it, most of them after receiving a helpful spade lead on a different auction. Several players chose to make a strong jump shift. Partner bid two notrump over that, and now Blackwood was no longer an option, making it difficult to investigate a grand.