Zenith Daylong - Oct 14, 2021 - Board 3

Board 3
Opponents vulnerable

♠ Q J 8  ♥ K Q J  ♦ K 10 7 2  ♣ 10 8 4

I have 12 HCP but no aces, and KQJ tight of hearts is hardly worth a full six points. This doesn't look like an opening bid to me.

I actually open a lot of hands others don't. But I pay more attention to playing strength than to high-card points. I once opened one heart and rebid three hearts with a hand that was opened with a weak two-bid at the other table. (We reached a good slam they missed.) Another time, the auction went one club--all pass, and, when my opponent tabled the dummy, I remarked that I would have opened one spade with her hand. (They went in down in one club, cold for four spades.) This hand, however, has little to recommend it. Two honor tricks. Three and a half playing tricks. It doesn't measure up to an opening bid by any standard other than blindly counting high-card points.

I pass. LHO opens one club, and the opponents have the auction to themselves:

West	North	East	South
Robot	Robot	Phillip	Robot
		Pass	1 ♣
Pass	1 ♦	Pass	1 ♥
Pass	1 ♠	Pass	1 NT
Pass	2 ♥	Pass	4 ♥
(All pass)

One spade was an artificial game force. Otherwise, the auction was natural. Partner leads the four of diamonds.

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

Dummy is a surprise. I would have just raised one notrump to three. This doesn't look like the time to be looking for a four-three heart fit, especially when partner doesn't know that's what you're doing. Partner has no reason to believe you don't have the four-card heart support your two-heart bid promises.

Leading dummy's long suit suggests a singleton. But the robots hate aggressive leads. It's possible partner is leading a doubleton diamond because his spades are headed by an honor. I think it's safe to assume that if partner has led a doubleton diamond, he has either the ace or king of spades. Declarer plays low from dummy, I win with the king, and declarer plays the five. Since the three is outstanding, I'm still not sure whether partner has a singleton or not.

If partner does have a singleton, there is no rush to giving him a ruff. Since he has three trumps, I can always give him a ruff upon winning the second round of trumps. And, since I have no entry outside trumps, I can never give him two ruffs. If he has a doubleton, however, it might be necessary to return a diamond now, so I can give him an overruff when I win my trump trick.

Let's give declarer,

♠ A x  ♥ x x x x  ♦ Q x  ♣ K Q J x x.

Say I continue a diamond. Declarer wins and ducks a trump. Playing a third diamond beats him if partner has the heart ten. But if declarer has it, he can ruff high, concede a trump, and claim, losing two trump tricks and the diamond king. What happens if I play a spade instead of a third diamond? Declarer has no way to draw partner's trumps and take a pitch. Either he loses a spade trick or he concedes a ruff. So he's down one.

On that layout, I must switch to a spade at some point, but it's not necessary to switch just yet. Is there some hand where I must switch to a spade now? Suppose declarer has the same hand with the spade king instead of the ace. If I play a diamond, declarer can overtake his queen with dummy's ace and pitch a spade on the jack. Partner ruffs and we get three more tricks--a spade and two trumps--for down two. If I play a spade instead, we can take two spades then play another diamond. When I get in with my trump entry, I can play a third diamond, scoring an overruff if partner has the heart ten. That's down three.

I've found a layout where a spade shift gains, and I can't think of one where a diamond continuation gains. So I play the spade queen--ace--seven--deuce. When you have led a short suit and partner shifts, I believe your card should be attitude, but it has more to do with the suit you led than the suit partner is shifting to. Discouraging suggests your lead was a singleton; encouraging suggests it wasn't. So the spade seven should say he has a doubleton diamond. Partner, of course, has his own theories about carding, and I haven't yet figured out what they are. So I'll have to work out his diamond holding on my own.

One thing you should do consistently on defense is ask yourself, "What do I expect declarer to do now?" Then, if declarer does something different, it will ring a bell. It's important to ask this question before declarer plays. Otherwise you will miss inferences.

For example, if you say to yourself, "Declarer will duck a club now, so he can ruff a club in dummy," and he doesn't, you will know there is a good chance he has no club losers to ruff. Or if you say to yourself, "Declarer is short of dummy entries, so he will use this opportunity to take a heart finesse now," and he doesn't, you will know there is good chance he doesn't have a heart finesse to take. Both of these inferences are easy to miss if you wait until declarer plays to try to construct the layout. What declarer chooses to do tends to look normal once you've seen him do it.

What do I expect declarer to do now? If he began with queen doubleton of diamonds, I expect him to lead the queen to dummy's ace and pitch his spade loser on dummy's jack. He knows partner will ruff, but it may be with a natural trump trick.

But declarer doesn't do that. He plays the three of hearts--four--eight--jack. Why isn't he taking a pitch? Probably because he can't--because he has queen third of diamonds. So I can give partner his diamond ruff, and partner can play a spade to my queen for a second ruff. That's one diamond, one spade, two ruffs, and two trump tricks for down three. See how much easier it is to draw inferences if you anticipate declarer's plays? If I had waited until declarer ducked a trump then tried to construct the layout, it would have been much harder.

I play the diamond deuce. Declarer plays the queen, and partner follows with the three. Where did I go wrong? How can declarer be playing this way with queen doubleton of diamonds? Did I lose our spade trick by not cashing it? No. There's no need to panic.We've reached the position I envisioned above through a different order of plays. If declarer tries to take a pitch, partner scores a ruff. If he doesn't, we score a spade trick. I was focused on deciding whether partner had a singleton or doubleton diamond. But perhaps I didn't need need to worry about that. It appears a diamond return works in either case.

Declarer plays the ten of hearts--six--seven--queen. He wouldn't have played the ten without the nine, so there is no chance partner can overruff a third round of diamonds. There is nothing left to do but cash whatever spades are cashing.

It turns out no spade tricks are cashing. I play a spade; declarer ruffs. He plays a club to dummy's ace and cashes the heart ace. When trumps split, he has the rest. Making four.

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

So I was right that declarer couldn't take a pitch after winning the spade ace. But it wasn't because he had queen third of diamonds; it was because he had no loser to pitch. It never occurred to me declarer had a stiff spade. And rightly so. Favorable vulnerability? After a one club opening? Facing a passed hand? How many more favorable circumstances does partner need to bid two spades?

I said above that I couldn't think of a layout where a diamond return at trick two was necessary. This layout would be one if partner had the heart ten. To beat this, I would need to continue diamonds at trick two, then give partner an overruff when I get in with a trump. Even if I had continued diamonds at trick two, I have no idea how I would know to play a third one. On the layout I constructed above, a third diamond instead of a spade would cost the contract. And I think that construction is more plausible than this one. Much more plausible. Partner shouldn't have this hand. Since I was never going to find the right defense anyway, I still think my spade shift at trick two was correct.

Actually, there is another reason to shift to a spade at trick two--one that didn't occur to me at the time. Suppose I play a diamond at trick two and partner ruffs it. What does he do now? If he has the spade ace, he might be tempted to play me for the king so he can take a second ruff. After all, he has no idea my hearts are so good. It might look highly likely that I have the spade king. Shifting to the spade queen and postponing the ruff keeps partner from making that mistake.

One might expect this to be a poor result. North's strange auction worked out well, since three notrump can be held to nine tricks. Fortunately, everyone who reached three notrump bid it from the North side (after an auction that began one diamond--two clubs) and made anywhere from ten to twelve tricks when my hand failed to find a spade lead. So we score 88% for minus 620.

My decision not to open also worked out well, but it should have worked out even better. If partner bids a normal two spades over one club and I raise to three spades, we can't do any worse than minus 600. So passing gains, strangely, because it keeps the auction low enough to enable partner to bid his hand.