Board 8
Neither vulnerable
| ♠ K 10 4 ♥ A K 3 ♦ A 6 5 3 ♣ 8 6 5 |
Three passes to me. I have only 14 HCP, but I do have three and a half honor tricks, which makes it a borderline one-notrump opening. Still, given the "4333" pattern and the absence of texture, I don't think the hand quite makes it across the border. So I open with one diamond.
Partner responds with one notrump and I pass, ending the auction. RHO leads the ten of hearts.
| NORTH Phillip ♠ K 10 4 ♥ A K 3 ♦ A 6 5 3 ♣ 8 6 5 |
||
| SOUTH Robot ♠ A Q 9 ♥ J 7 6 ♦ 9 7 ♣ Q J 10 3 2 |
| West | North | East | South |
| Robot | Phillip | Robot | Robot |
| |
|
Pass | Pass |
| Pass | 1 ♦ | Pass | 1 NT |
| (All pass) | |
|
|
I have six cashing tricks. I can possibly develop three more in clubs to make nine, although I will have to give up the lead twice to do so. How many tricks can the opponents take if I give up the lead twice? Without knowing who has the heart queen, how diamonds split, or how the club honors lie, it's impossible to say. But let's make a guess.
My first decision will be whether to hop with the heart ace or duck. For now, let's say I hop. I play a club. They win and play a diamond. I win and play another club. They win and cash however many diamonds they can. If they can cash at least three, they are holding me to at most eight tricks, so I am pitching winners as they run diamonds. This is important to note, because it means ducking the heart can't gain in this scenario. I already have more tricks than I can use, so scoring the heart jack won't matter. If the opponents can take at least three diamond tricks, my right play at trick one is to rise with the heart ace.
Can they? Not necessarily. In fact, if diamonds are five two and the hand with long diamonds has a stiff club honor (or neither club honor), I can hold them to one diamond trick. But most of the time they will be able to take at least three. So hopping looks like the right play.
Except I didn't ask the right question. It's not "can they take three
diamond tricks?" It's "will they?" They can't see my hand. And a diamond shift may not look all that attractive.
If the defense isn't going to find a diamond shift, I might as well duck at trick one. If I duck and clubs come home, I'll take ten tricks if the lead was from the queen and nine if it wasn't. If I hop, I may end up with only eight tricks. Say West has queen-ten-nine fifth of hearts. I rise and
play a club. East wins and plays a heart through my jack. If West has
the other club honor, they take three hearts and two clubs--five tricks without ever touching diamonds.
So it appears my best strategy is this: Hop if they are going to find a diamond shift; duck if they aren't. Will they find it? A lot depends on their precise diamond holdings. The shift will be easier to find from a sequence than from a broken suit. But diamonds is dummy's longest suit after all. And dummy's three small clubs may make clubs an attractive shift to East. If East wins the heart queen at trick one, he may lead clubs for me. Rightly or wrongly, I decide to duck. East plays the four, and I win with the jack.
Hurdle one cleared. But I still have to hope they don't find the diamond shift. If they do, my extra heart trick may be worthless.
What's the best way to attack the club suit? If East has a stiff club honor, I must get to dummy to lead a club. But how? Getting to dummy with a heart risks letting West establish his heart suit. Getting to dummy with a spade exposes the fact that spades aren't a threat and may make it easy to find the diamond shift.
At least it would playing against a human. A human might decide I would never play a spade unless I had both missing spade honors. But robots don't think that way. A robot will think ace third of spades is a possible holding for me. So releasing dummy's spade king actually makes it more likely that a robot will see spades as an attractive shift.
A spade to the king, then, serves two purposes: It enables me to make my best play in clubs, and it serves as an "idiot's delight." (Howard Chandross' name for the tactic of gratuitously cashing winners to induce an inexperienced defender to play that suit.)
I play the spade nine--deuce--king--seven. Then the club five--ace--deuce--four. East is delighted to shift to the spade five. I win and drive the club king. Making four.
| NORTH Phillip ♠ K 10 4 ♥ A K 3 ♦ A 6 5 3 ♣ 8 6 5 |
||
| WEST Robot ♠ 8 3 2 ♥ Q 10 9 5 ♦ Q 10 4 ♣ K 9 4 |
EAST Robot ♠ J 7 6 5 ♥ 8 4 2 ♦ K J 8 2 ♣ A 7 |
|
| SOUTH Robot ♠ A Q 9 ♥ J 7 6 ♦ 9 7 ♣ Q J 10 3 2 |
Plus 180 is worth 79%. About half the field ducked at trick one and half rose with the heart ace. It turns out the idiot's delight was unnecessary. If you duck the heart to your jack and play the club queen, West grabs the trick to lead spades through dummy's king. So everyone who ducked made four.
If you rise with the heart ace and play a club, the defense still doesn't find the diamond shift. But East hops with the club ace and continues hearts, which suffices to hold it to three.
The only declarer to take fewer than nine tricks is the one who opened with one notrump and got to game. Weirdly, the reason opening one notrump failed was because it wrong-sided
the contract. It was easy for the defense to find five tricks after a spade lead by East. Or maybe that's not so weird. This doesn't look like a hand that needs to grab notrump. Perhaps opening one notrump under strength with no tenaces is a bad idea.
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