Zenith Daylong - Oct 14, 2021 - Board 16

Board 16
Opponents vulnerable

♠ K 7 3  ♥ A 8 6  ♦ Q  ♣ K Q 9 8 4 3

LHO passes. Partner opens with three diamonds in second seat, and RHO passes. Even if our diamonds are solid, a heart lead will probably defeat three notrump. And if they aren't solid, three notrump will have little play. So I pass, as does LHO. West leads the king of hearts.

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

West	North	East	South
Robot	Phillip	Robot	Robot
		Pass	3 ♦
(All pass)

I have seven diamond tricks, a heart, and a club. Nine tricks. If the spade ace is onside, I can take one more--possibly two more if they allow me to establish a second club trick for a spade discard.

I win the heart lead with dummy's ace, and East plays the five. I play the queen of diamonds--deuce--three--five. I ruff a heart. East plays the heart ten; West, the seven. I draw two more trumps. West follows with the nine, then pitches the spade deuce. East follows with the six, then the ten.

West appears to have a good heart suit and a doubleton diamond and chose not to bid over three diamonds. He probably doesn't have both aces, so the prospect of setting up a second club trick for a discard is not good. I play the six of clubs--deuce--queen--ace. West might have led a stiff club, so unless that's a stiff ace, clubs are probably breaking. If so, and if the spade ace is onside, the defense must knock out dummy's spade king to keep me from making five. That shouldn't be hard for East to see. So if he doesn't lead a spade, I'm going to assume he has the ace.

He plays the heart nine, and I ruff. West follows with the four. Here is the current position. I am assuming the spade ace is offside and would like to find some way to lose only two tricks.

	NORTH Phillip ♠ K 7 3 ♥ -- ♦ -- ♣ K 9 8
	SOUTH Robot ♠ 9 8 4 ♥ -- ♦ J 8 ♣ 7

If East is out of hearts, I may be able to endplay him. I have two ways to attempt that: (A) Play a club to dummy and another club. If East follows, pitch a spade. (B) Play a club. If West follows low, insert the eight. When East wins, he must give me my spade king or return a club to dummy, letting me pitch two spades. 

(B) works whenever (A) does, and it also works when East began with ace-jack or ace-ten doubleton of clubs and has no more hearts. The problem with (B) is that if East has a heart to return, I may never score the club king, in which case I've gone down in a cold contract. I have no particular reason to believe East is out of hearts, so I'll play for (A). It gives me some chance to make an overtrick without the risk of going down.

I lead the seven of clubs--five--king--ten. On the next club, East pitches the five of spades. Oh, well. No endplay. I ruff, and East follows with the jack. Here is the position now:

	NORTH Phillip ♠ K 7 3 ♥ -- ♦ -- ♣ 8
	SOUTH Robot ♠ 9 8 4 ♥ -- ♦ J ♣ --

I could be wrong that East would have shifted to spades without the ace, but it's a reasonable assumption. If I'm right that the ace is offside, is there any chance of scoring the king? 

East began with three-two in the minors. If he is out of hearts, as he needs to be for me to have any hope of an endplay, he was 5-3-3-2 and is now down to four spades. West pitched the spade deuce earlier, so he has one spade left. If it happens to be the six, then I can duck a spade to East. Of course, I'll look silly if West turns out to hold ace-six of spades. But there is no need to worry about that unless he plays the six. If he does, then I can decide how confident I am in my inference.

I lead the spade nine. West plays the ten. There is no reason not to play the king now. East takes the ace, then cashes the queen and jack. Making three.

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

48%.  It's below average because a few Norths tried 3NT and, even after a heart lead, the robots weren't able to find the right defense.

It feels as if I should have been able to do something in the end position. In the diagrammed position above, East's last four cards are AQJ6 of spades. Shouldn't he be in some kind of trouble? Yes, of course! I don't need West's stiff spade to be the six. A stiff ten works as well. All I have to do is cash my last trump. If East comes down to AQJ of spades, I duck a spade and endplay him. If he pitches the queen or jack, my nine of spades sets up. I had him in a one-suit squeeze. That's annoying. One-suit squeezes don't come up often, so it's a shame to miss one when it does. Plus 130 would have been worth 87%. 

Why didn't I see that? Possibly it's because I hadn't fully committed to placing the spade ace offside. If the thought "the spade ace might be onside after all" weren't floating around in my head, I might have stopped to ask myself if cashing the last trump would accomplish anything. Alternatively, I could have arrived at the solution from a different direction. If I had seen the possibility of a one-suit squeeze first, I might then have asked myself how confident I was that the spade ace was offside. I've internalized most squeeze matrices, so that the possibilities jump out at me without my having to look for them. But apparently one-suit squeezes aren't among those I've internalized. I need to make an effort to be more alert to them.

I finish with 59%, putting me 159th out of 1562 players. The best-hand robot individuals usually take in the high 70s or even low 80s to win. The winning score in this tournament was 68%. I would have come very close to that if not for my two egregious errors--the one on this board and my misplay on board eight.

For the next event, I'll try something different. Every Friday, BBO posts a Weekly Free Instant Tournament, which is available through Thursday of the following week. I'll play in the one they post this Friday, February 11, and will discuss the boards here. If you want, you can play the same boards and compare your results with mine. You can find the tournament under the Solitaire menu on BBO.

You can also watch Pete Hollands' video on YouTube or on BBO and get a different perspective on the same boards. He plays and discusses the deals in real time and posts the video on Tuesday. I admire anyone who can do that. Not only am I a very slow player, I can't talk and think at the same time. So if I tried that, the video would consist of me starting at the screen in silence for ten minutes, then telling you what I was thinking about.