Zenith Daylong - Oct 14, 2021 - Board 13

Board 13
Both vulnerable

♠ 8 5 4 3  ♥ K J 8 2  ♦ K 10 8 5  ♣ 7

Partner passes, and RHO opens with one club. I would double at favorable vulnerability. But with both vulnerable, this is a bit light. I pass. LHO bids one spade, and RHO bids one notrump. 

Double at this point should not be "a hand not quite good enough to double one club." If it wasn't safe to double when partner could respond at the one-level, it certainly isn't safe when he has to respond at the two-level, especially now that the opponents have had a chance to exchange information. Nor should double show a red two-suiter. Any red two-suiter worth entering the auction with now was worth a one-level overcall.

A double now should be take-out of spades and should bring clubs into the picture as a possible trump suit. You are probably either "4441" or "5431," and in the latter case your five-card suit is probably clubs, since you could have overcalled with a five-card red suit. It also shows a  good hand--at least a sound opening bid--allowing partner the option of defending one notrump if his best suit happens to be spades.

That's hardly what I have, so I pass, and RHO buys it for one notrump. I'm not leading from four small in dummy's suit. That risks picking up a queen or jack in partner's hand that declarer is destined to lose to if we don't break the suit. The choice is between a heart and a diamond. I should prefer to lead a suit in which neither declarer nor dummy has length. Since RHO would open one diamond with four-four in the minors, he is more likely to have four hearts than four diamonds. On the other hand, dummy is more likely to have four diamonds than four hearts. With four-four in the majors, he would have responded with one heart, and with five-four, he would be removing one notrump Those two considerations cancel out, so I'll choose the weaker suit, since it's less apt to give away a trick. I lead the diamond five.

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

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

Dummy plays the deuce, partner the queen, and declarer wins with the ace. The robots know to play the jack from queen-jack at trick one (though they don't always do that on later tricks), so declarer should have the jack. Declarer has 12 to 14 HCP, so that leaves partner with 10 to 12. No. He passed in first seat. Make that 10 or 11. What do I know about the layout? Not much. Declarer is balanced, doesn't have four spades, and has longer clubs than diamonds--unless he's 3-4-3-3. I know nothing about the high cards outside the diamond suit.

As usual when I know so little, I'll start by making a prediction. If my prediction doesn't come true, I'll have learned something. Since clubs is obviously declarer's main source of tricks. my prediction is that declarer will attack clubs at trick two. He doesn't. He plays the spade queen. 

One possible reason for not attacking clubs is that they are already good. In other words, he has the ace-king of clubs. If so, then the ace-jack of diamonds and the spade queen brings him to 14 HCP, so partner has everything else. That's unlikely, however. With that hand declarer would probably run his clubs right away in order to put pressure on the defense.

A likelier possibility is that he is missing the club king and needs to reach dummy for a finesse. He is unblocking his queen doubleton of spades before leading a spade to dummy. (With queen third, he wouldn't cash the queen. He would just lead low to dummy.) If he had plenty of dummy entries, he might be missing king-jack of clubs and wish to start clubs from the dummy. But with only one dummy entry, he doesn't have that luxury. So I suspect he has ace-jack of clubs. One thing I am fairly confident of is that he has the ace. Missing that card, he would surely attack clubs before spades.

If I'm right that he has ace-jack of both minors, the spade queen brings him to 12 HCP, which means partner must have the heart ace. So we have lots of red tricks to cash whenever we get in. A quarter of a trick ago, I had no clue how the high cards were distributed. Now I have a pretty good idea.

I play the spade eight, and partner plays the deuce. Declarer then leads the nine of spades. I follow with the three, declarer finesses the ten, and partner wins with the jack.

By taking the spade finesse, declarer risked never getting to dummy in spades. That argues against his needing to take a club finesse. Perhaps his clubs are solid after all. Perhaps the reason he didn't run clubs is he wanted to save a club entry to dummy in case the spade finesse lost.

Partner shifts to the seven of diamonds. Declarer plays the four, and I win with the eight. For all declarer knows, the diamond king is onside, so he would not play low with jack small of diamonds left. He must have started with ace-jack fourth. With AJ94, he would have played the jack or nine rather than the four, so he must have AJ43 and partner must have started with Q97. Why didn't partner lead the nine so he could retain the lead? Who knows? But that has to be the diamond layout. Nothing else makes sense. 

If declarer has four diamonds, he is presumably 2-2-4-5, since he would open one diamond with 2-3-4-4. I have already worked out partner has the heart ace, so I shift to the deuce of hearts. Partner takes his ace, and declarer drops the nine.

Partner shifts to the nine of diamonds and declarer ducks again, playing the three. He seems to be hoping I led from king third. I win with the ten. I expect declarer to pitch a heart from dummy, but he doesn't. He pitches a club. When I cash the diamond king, he discards the club nine from dummy. Again, a heart discard seems more natural. Partner discards the club deuce. This is the current position:

	NORTH Robot ♠ A K ♥ 4 3 ♦ -- ♣ Q 10
WEST Phillip ♠ 5 4 ♥ K J 8 ♦ -- ♣ 7

If my construction is correct, declarer has a stiff heart and five clubs left. So if I cash the heart king, we can take three heart tricks for down two. But before I commit myself, it's good practice to stop and ask if it's possible my construction is wrong. I have assumed South would open one diamond with four-four in the minors. But what if that's not true? Could he be 2-3-4-4 with queen third of hearts?

If so, could it gain not to cash the heart king? One possibility is to play partner for the club ace. I can lead to his ace and he can play a heart through declarer. But I decided long ago declarer has to have the club ace. If he is missing a club honor, it must be the king. So that option is out. 

Another possibility is that we can lock declarer in dummy and take two heart tricks in the end. Is that possible? In theory it is. If partner has king-eight third of clubs left, I can play either black suit. When declarer plays the club queen from dummy, partner covers, blocking the suit.

But that's absurd. I already observed that pitching clubs from dummy instead of hearts was strange. He surely wouldn't have done that if it might cut communication to his hand. So even if declarer did start with queen third of hearts, not cashing the queen can never gain. (Keeping those hearts losers in dummy was actually a clever ploy, since it gave me a losing option.)

I cash the king of hearts--three--six--queen. We take two more heart tricks, and declarer has the rest. Down two.

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

Finessing the spade ten was a very strange play. It is certainly wrong if the finesse loses, since the hand falls apart. And it doesn't necessarily gain if the finesse wins. Suppose the spade ten holds but the club finesse loses. Now you are pitching winners as the defense runs red-suit tricks, so the extra winner in spades makes no difference. If a finesse is wrong when it loses and isn't necessarily right when it wins, it's probably not a good idea to take it.

Plus 200 is worth 74%. Some defenders led a spade. This failed for the expected reason: it picked up partner's honor. Others led a diamond but failed to read the position after that. They either cashed the diamond king prematurely or failed to cash the heart king when necessary. This was a tricky deal. There were lots of chances to go wrong, but the clues were always there to point you in the right direction. 

As is often the case, the gimmick of trying to predict what declarer is going to do makes spotting those clues easier. If you wait until you have a decision to make, the clues are harder to find. In this deal, for example, I needed to know at trick eight whether partner had the club ace. But the clue that he didn't occurred at trick two. At trick eight, a lot more has happened, and I have more information to sort through. While it's possible to review the play from the beginning and spot the clue, it's a lot more work. At trick two, making the inference is easy--so long as you take the effort to do it.