Free Weekly Instant Tournament - November 25 - Board 6

Board 6
Opponents vulnerable

♠ Q 7 6  ♥ K Q 9 3  ♦ A Q 3  ♣ Q 5 4

RHO passes. In the early days of bridge, this hand would not qualify for a strong notrump opening, since it contains only three honor tricks. A one-notrump opening was expected to contain three and a half or four. Possibly this judgment is correct. Queens are overvalued relative to aces in the Work point count. So with four queens and only one ace, 15 HCP overstates the value of the hand. 

Still, such considerations are less important--possibly even wrong--for notrump bidding. So I'm opening with one notrump anyway. If partner steers toward a suit contract, I'll consider this a sub-minimum.

Over one notrump, LHO bids two spades, showing spades and a minor. Partner bids two notrump, a puppet to three clubs. I bid three clubs and LHO doubles. The tooltip says this shows "rebiddable clubs," so I assume LHO has at least five clubs. He might have only four spades.

Partner bids three diamonds, to play, ending the auction. RHO leads the club deuce.

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

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

Partner had quite a problem over two spades. A negative double, intending to correct three clubs to three diamonds, might work out. But if opener passes the double, as he usually will with four spades, you won't be happy. I don't believe the robots play negative doubles here anyway, so pass and two notrump were partner's only options. While I don't like passing with spade shortness, I don't like playing five-two fits at the three level either, so I would have simply passed.

I play a low club from dummy. East wins with the king and I play the three. Presumably West has jack third of clubs and East has ace-king-ten fifth.

East shifts to the heart five. This is probably a singleton. I must conceal the four so West won't be sure about that. I play the heart seven, and West takes the ace.

West cashes the spade ace. East plays the three and I drop the four. I haven't seen the deuce. The robots don't signal. But if they did, East's card should be attitude--low to say his heart shift was a singleton and high to say it wasn't.

On this particular layout, most players would probably agree on that. But some would play East's card as suit preference if dummy had the spade king instead of the queen. They would play high to ask for hearts and low to ask for clubs. I think that is a serious error. Playing low to ask for hearts sometimes and high to ask for hearts at other times is begging to have an accident. This is an attitude situation. Was your heart shift a singleton or not? It makes no difference whether the likely alternative to giving you a heart ruff is continuing spades or shifting to clubs. Sometimes the alternative won't be obvious, so the defenders should have to worry about that in order to determine to what kind of signal East should give. Switching signaling methods based on some irrelevant criterion provides no benefit, so why bother? If you always play attitude here, you can't have an accident.

West continues with the jack of spades. I don't want to give him another chance to find the heart ruff, so I cover with the queen. East wins with the king and cashes the club ace. West plays the eight. That's the fifth trick for the opponents, so I'm already down one.

East now plays the spade five. I can ruff high or low. When does it matter?

Ruffing low costs if West is out of spades, since West can overruff and give his partner a heart ruff. In other words, it costs when East is 6-1-1-5. If that's the case and I ruff high, I promote a trump trick for West and go down two. But if I ruff low, I lose two more tricks and go down three.

Is that construction possible? Personally, with a six-card major I would just treat the hand as a one-suiter and forget the club suit. Taking an auction where you might have only four spades but actually have six is an easy way to miss a game. But the robots may not agree, so that is at best a mild inference.

When does it cost to ruff high? It costs if West has four diamonds but is following to the spade. If I ruff high in that case, I promote a trump trick for West for no reason. So ruffing high costs if East is 5-2-1-5.

Is that construction possible? I was assuming East's heart shift was from a singleton. But perhaps it wasn't. East didn't know his partner had the spade ace, so neither black suit was attractive at trick two. Maybe East shifted to heart simply to be passive. In fact, that seems quite likely, since it would explain West's failure to give him a ruff. West can be pretty sure I don't have five hearts, so if he has ace third of hearts, he knows East's heart wasn't a singleton.

5-2-1-5 is more likely a priori than 6-1-1-5, and it is suggested by both the auction and the play. So I ruff with the eight. East overruffs with the nine and gives his partner a heart ruff. Down three.

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

Minus 150 is worth 57%. It's above average because the opponents are cold for a spade game and get there if you don't open with one notrump. If I ruff high and go minus 100, I get 86%.

One thing that didn't occur to me at the time is that West might have assumed I had six diamonds. Perhaps he didn't give his partner a heart ruff because he didn't think his partner had any trumps. Perhaps he thought East was 6-2-0-5. But even if I had thought of that, I doubt I would have changed my mind. East's holding 5-2-1-5 seemed like a pretty likely construction.