Board 6
Both vulnerable
| ♠ A Q J ♥ A K ♦ 10 9 ♣ A K 10 7 3 2 |
RHO passes. How should I handle this hand? It's too strong for one club. But two clubs followed by three clubs is an awkward auction. It's best to avoid it unless nothing else appeals. Despite the two small diamonds, treating this hand as some variety of notrump opening is more palatable. Which variety? A two notrump opening shows 20-21 HCP. Two clubs followed by two notrump shows 22-24 HCP. This hand has 21 HCP, but the six-card club suit is worth at least one HCP, so two clubs, then two notrump looks like the right choice.
I bid two clubs, partner bids two diamonds, and I bid two notrump. Partner transfers to hearts, then bids three notrump, which I pass. West leads the club queen.
| NORTH Robot ♠ 6 2 ♥ Q 9 8 7 5 ♦ J 4 2 ♣ J 6 4 |
||
| SOUTH Phillip ♠ A Q J ♥ A K ♦ 10 9 ♣ A K 10 7 3 2 |
| West | North | East | South |
| Robot | Robot | Robot | Phillip |
| |
|
Pass | 2 ♣ |
| Pass | 2 ♦ | Pass | 2 NT |
| Pass | 3 ♦ | Pass | 3 ♥ |
| Pass | 3 NT | (All pass) | |
I have at least ten tricks: six clubs, three hearts, and the spade ace. If hearts split, I have two more. And I will need to decide at some point whether to risk the spade finesse. The opening lead suggests the spade king is offside. If West was going to choose a passive lead, a lead from small spades of whatever length would have been more attractive than what is apparently a singleton club.
East plays the five of clubs, and I win with the king. I cash the king and ace of hearts. (Cashing the king first is right, since the opponents are more apt to give count, thinking their partner may have the ace.) West plays four, six; East plays three, jack. The deuce and ten are left. Since no one played the deuce on the first round, the suit is probably four-two. West surely would have played six, four with a doubleton, so I suspect he is the one with four. He played a bloodless count card on the first round, then choose to conceal his deuce on the second round.
I play the deuce of clubs to the jack. West discards the seven of diamonds, and East follows with the nine of clubs. The robots tend to give count when discarding, and the seven looks like the start of an echo with four. So it appears West is 4-4-4-1.
I cash the queen of hearts. East pitches the diamond eight, and I pitch the diamond nine. Since I suspect from the opening lead that the spade king is offside, I'm not taking the finesse at this point. Perhaps if the king is onside, the opponents will discard poorly and I will get another chance in the end position.
I play a club to my hand. West discards the spade eight. On the next club, he pitches the spade three; East, the spade ten. West's echo in spades is consistent with my belief that he is 4-4-4-1. Here is the current position with my best guess for the East-West cards:
| NORTH Robot ♠ 6 2 ♥ 9 ♦ J 4 2 ♣ -- |
||
| WEST Robot ♠ K x ♥ 10 ♦ ? ? ? ♣ -- |
EAST Robot ♠ x x x ♥ -- ♦ ? ? ? ♣ -- |
|
| SOUTH Phillip ♠ A Q J ♥ -- ♦ 10 ♣ 7 3 |
On the next club, both opponents discard diamonds, the three and the five. On the last club, West discards the heart ten; East, the spade nine. Each opponent has two spades and two diamonds left, so it doesn't hurt to exit with a diamond and see what happens. West wins with the king of diamonds, then leads the queen to his partner's ace. There are only spades left, so I can safely finesse when East leads a spade, although I don't expect the finesse to win. It doesn't. Making four.
| NORTH Robot ♠ 6 2 ♥ Q 9 8 7 5 ♦ J 4 2 ♣ J 6 4 |
||
| WEST Robot ♠ K 8 5 3 ♥ 10 6 4 2 ♦ K Q 7 3 ♣ Q |
EAST Robot ♠ 10 9 7 4 ♥ J 3 ♦ A 8 6 5 ♣ 9 8 5 |
|
| SOUTH Phillip ♠ A Q J ♥ A K ♦ 10 9 ♣ A K 10 7 3 2 |
76%! Another result that's better than I expected it to be. Why is this result so good? Some opened one club and played it there. I don't mind opening at the one level when others might choose two clubs. But the time to do that is when you have a flexible hand and want to leave room to bid all your suits. With this hand, even if partner responds to one club, you have no suitable rebid. That's precisely the hand the two-club opening was designed for.
Some took the same auction I did but corrected three notrump to four hearts, apparently frightened by their lack of a diamond stopper. Fear makes you do terrible things.
Some reached five clubs after opening two clubs and rebidding three clubs.
And some brave souls went down in three notrump by taking
the spade finesse after cashing the heart queen. Taking the finesse is reasonable provided (A) you expect this to be a normal contract and (B) you expect the finesse to win at least half the time. One might be forgiven for (A). It's a bit surprising that less than half the field is in three notrump. But if you ask yourself why West chose to lead a club rather than a spade, you should realize the finesse is not a favorite.
Do you often play the hand differently against the robots than against humans? Here you seemed to trust the robots lead and carding enough to "know" they each had two diamonds and two spades left after the ninth trick.
ReplyDeleteIn this particular case, I would probably exit a diamond against humans as well, since the only way I could lose the spade ace would be if one opponent had all four diamonds, which doesn't seem likely. But, to answer your question, I certainly play differently against robots, since they think differently than humans. They have different reasons for making the decisions they make. They fall for traps humans would never fall for. And they fail to fall for some traps that most humans would fall for. (The trick of attacking your own weakest suit when declaring notrump never seems to work against robots, for example.) If you don't try to get inside their heads, you are giving up a potential edge. Some might say this means you aren't playing real bridge--that it's some other game. But I think trying to think about hands in unfamiliar ways is actually a useful exercise.
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