Board 5
Our side vulnerable
| ♠ A 5 ♥ 9 4 ♦ K Q 8 7 4 2 ♣ K 8 2 |
Partner passes, and RHO opens with one club. I bid one diamond, and West bids three clubs, pre-emptive. Partner, who passed originally, comes to life with three spades, and RHO passes.
Personally, I would play this three-spade bid as fit-showing, showing five spades and four or more diamonds. If you pass in first seat, you deny a one-suiter with which you can act at the three-level unilaterally. So, unless you have a diamond fit, it is impossible to hold hand where you would want to bid three spades now.
The robots don't see it that way, however. The tooltip says this bid shows five or more spades and 12+ total points. I suspect partner is six-four in the majors and didn't want to open with a weak two-bid when he had four hearts. In any event, I don't think I can make game opposite such a hand. So I pass and we buy it for three spades. West leads the six of diamonds.
| NORTH Phillip ♠ A 5 ♥ 9 4 ♦ K Q 8 7 4 2 ♣ K 8 2 |
||
| SOUTH Robot ♠ J 10 9 7 6 ♥ 10 8 7 2 ♦ A J ♣ A 9 |
| West | North | East | South |
| Robot | Phillip | Robot | Robot |
| |
|
|
Pass |
| 1 ♣ | 1 ♦ | 3 ♣ | 3 ♠ |
| (All pass) | |
|
|
I see. Partner had an obvious responsive double over three clubs. He has nothing resembling a three spade bid. Had he doubled, I would have bid three diamonds, which probably makes. (Yes, we can make 3NT also, but I doubt I would have tried that opposite a passed hand.)
Making this contract is going to be difficult. I start with six losers--two spades and four hearts--and somehow need to avoid two of them. Is that possible? If I find king-queen third of spades onside, I can avoid one of the spade losers. If there is a blockage in hearts, perhaps they will be unable to untangle four heart tricks. Then I can pitch a heart on a diamond.
East should have five clubs for his three-club bid and is unlikely to hold four hearts. That makes West either 3-4-3-3 or 4-4-2-3. I don't think he would lead the diamond six from ten-nine-six, so it must be the latter. There go my chances of losing only one spade trick. On the plus side, since I can't pick up the spades, I can now use dummy's small trump to ruff a heart and hold this to down one. They can always prevent the ruff, but maybe they will be disinclined to break the trump suit.
I play a low diamond from dummy. East plays the three, and I win with the ace. I play the deuce of hearts. West plays the jack. East overtakes with the queen and cashes the king as West plays the three. I don't know why East thought overtaking the jack was a good idea, but I"m glad he did. Now that they have crashed heart honors, I don't need to ruff a heart. I can simply drive the ace and establish my eight. I just need to get East's trumps out of the way first.
East shifts to the five of clubs--nine--ten--king. West opened the bidding with a balanced hand and so far has shown up with five HCP in hearts and at most three in clubs. So he must have the king-queen of spades. I have to hope East's doubleton spade includes the eight, else I have three trump losers. I cash the space ace, and East plays the eight, kindly relieving the suspense. I drive the top spades and eventually establish a heart trick. Down one.
| NORTH Phillip ♠ A 5 ♥ 9 4 ♦ K Q 8 7 4 2 ♣ K 8 2 |
||
| WEST Robot ♠ K Q 3 2 ♥ A J 5 3 ♦ 6 5 ♣ Q 10 7 |
EAST Robot ♠ 8 4 ♥ K Q 6 ♦ 10 9 3 ♣ J 6 5 4 3 |
|
| SOUTH Robot ♠ J 10 9 7 6 ♥ 10 8 7 2 ♦ A J ♣ A 9 |
Minus 100 is worth 72%. Most declarers went down two, often after trying to pitch a heart on diamonds, which would not appear to be the best approach.
Two pairs managed to make five, with a ploy I should have thought of. They won the opening lead with the diamond jack. Of course I should win trick one with the jack! There is no reason to unblock the suit, so why tell West where the diamond ace is? Winning with the ace was a careless play.
Declarer then continued with ace and a spade. West won and continued diamonds. Declarer won and drove the remaining high trump. Now West didn't know whether to play hearts or clubs. He chose the club queen, and declarer took the rest.
East can solve his partner's problem by pitching a discouraging club on the third round of spades. So this line works only against robots or against humans who have suit-preference accidents. Still, it can't hurt to make the opponents solve it.
Winning with the diamond ace and playing a heart made the hand an open book for the defense. Once I concluded West had four spades, I had no legitimate chance to make this contract anyway. So concealing the fact that diamonds were running and hoping the opponents didn't work out to cash their heart tricks in time was clearly a better approach.
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