Weekly Free Instant Tournament - Apr 8, 2022 - Board 5

Board 5
Our side vulnerable

♠ Q 10 7  ♥ K 10 8  ♦ J 6  ♣ A Q J 8 5

Two passes to me. I open with one club and partner bids two notrump. 13 HCP, two tens, and a good five-card suit is an obvious acceptance. I bid three notrump. Everyone passes, and West leads the deuce of clubs.

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

West	North	East	South
Robot	Phillip	Robot	Robot
			Pass
Pass	1 ♣	Pass	2 NT
Pass	3 NT	(All pass)

That's not a helpful lead. Sometimes the robots' passive leads are welcome, such as when I don't have a stopper in their suit. But on deals like this I wish they would lead their own suit and help me out a bit. 

I have five club tricks and two aces. I need two more tricks. One heart and one spade look like the likely candidates unless I can get the opponents to break diamonds for me. It's tempting to run a bunch of clubs both to get some information and so the opponents won't have clubs for a passive exit when I duck a trick to them. But clubs is my source of communication between the two hands. It's not clear I can afford to destroy that communication. 

My best chance in hearts is to lead low to the eight, hoping to find queen nine or jack nine onside, with the possibility of finding the ace onside if that doesn't work. Fortunately, East isn't wily enough to win with the jack or queen holding queen-jack-nine. 

I play the club five from dummy. East plays the nine and I win with the ten. Now I have only one more club entry to my hand. Should I have played the eight from dummy? Too late to worry about that now. It was sloppy not even to think about it.

I play the deuce of hearts. West hops with the ace. OK. That makes eight tricks. One more to go. East plays the four, and West continues with the heart queen. I could win this, strip the opponents of clubs, then exit with a heart, forcing the opponents to break a pointed suit for me. But what do I pitch when they cash their heart? They might even have a fifth one to cash. No. That seems like a bad plan.

If I don't need my heart loser as an exit, I might as well duck this trick to get a little more information. I play the ten under the queen, and West plays the jack. West continues with the heart six, and East follows with the nine.

I suspect East has the thirteenth heart. Hopping with the ace and leading the queen would be a strange play from ace-queen fourth. 

All I need to do now is to guess the spades. Should I play West for the spade jack or the king? He probably has one or the other. If he was intent on making a passive lead, a passive spade lead (an unbid major) would have been more attractive than dummy's suit. But he is as likely to avoid leading from the jack as from the king, so the opening lead offers no useful clue.

What about the auction? West is a passed hand and has shown up with the ace-queen of hearts. If he has the diamond king, he can't have the spade king. If he doesn't have the diamond king, he's fifty-fifty to have the spade king. So the spade king rates to be with East. My best play, then, is a spade to the ten.

If the ten loses to the jack, I'm probably down, but I still have a slim chance. First, my inference that West has a spade honor must be wrong. I need East to have the spade king. I also need him to have the  king-queen of diamonds. If so, I can squeeze him. If he cashes the long heart, he corrects the count. I pitch a diamond from each hand, then win his diamond shift and cash clubs, coming down to this position:

	NORTH Phillip ♠ Q 7 ♥ -- ♦ -- ♣ 8
	SOUTH Robot ♠ A 4 ♥ -- ♦ 10 ♣ --

Dummy's last club squeezes East in spades and diamonds.

If East avoids correcting the count by not cashing the last heart, I have a strip squeeze. I cash clubs, coming down to this position:

	NORTH Phillip ♠ Q 7 ♥ -- ♦ J ♣ 8
	SOUTH Robot ♠ A 4 ♥ -- ♦ 10 7 ♣ --

Now the last club squeezes East out of his heart winner. He must come down to king doubleton of spades and a high diamond, and I can toss him in with a diamond.

Back to the current position:

	NORTH Phillip ♠ Q 10 7 ♥ -- ♦ J  6 ♣ A Q J 8
	SOUTH Robot ♠ A 4 2 ♥ -- ♦ A 10 7 ♣ K 7 6

I cash the club ace. East pitches the diamond three. Now a club to my king. East pitches the spade three. I lead the spade deuce, intending to finesse the ten if West plays low, but he rescues me by hopping with the king and returning a spade. I have all but the last trick. Making three.

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

Sometimes in a situation like this, it is tempting to berate yourself for making the wrong decision. "If West had ducked the king," you tell yourself, "I would have played the ten and gone down." Actually, you should congratulate yourself for making the right decision. If you thought playing the ten was the right choice even against a West who would duck the king, it was surely the right choice against a West who wouldn't.

I argued that East was more likely than West to have the spade king. But I didn't bother to figure out how much more likely, since I didn't care. It might be instructive to do that now.

We made two assumptions: (1) West can't have both pointed kings, and (2) if East has the spade king, West has the spade jack. That gives us four ways to distribute those three cards: West can have diamond king and the spade jack, the spade king and the spade jack, the spade king and no spade jack, or just the spade jack. The second case we can ignore, since our play doesn't matter. That leaves us with three relevant cases. Leading to the spade ten works in two of them; leading to the queen works in one.

Almost everyone who bid three notrump made it. Fortunately not everyone bid it. Quite a few players passed two notrump. That seems awfully conservative. Make the jack of diamonds the queen, and some would open with a strong notrump, so it seems strange to call this hand a minimum.

In any event, plus 600 is worth 82%. My average is also 82%, and I'm still in first place.