Free Weekly Instant Tournament - March 17 - Board 6

Board 6
Opponents vulnerable

♠ Q 9 8  ♥ A 9  ♦ A Q J 8 7 2  ♣ 6 5

Partner opens with one diamond. I bid two diamonds, showing a limit raise or better in diamonds. Partner bids four hearts. I should have thought that was a splinter, but the tooltip says it shows four or more hearts and 7 to 12 total points. That makes no sense. Then I notice that it was RHO who opened with one diamond, not partner. My two-diamond bid was Michaels, showing a major two-suiter.

Now what? Since it's a Weekly Free Instant Tournament, I could withdraw and start over, taking care to make the same bids and plays as I replay the first five boards. There is some justification for doing this, since this is a mishap that couldn't happen in face-to-face play. But it sets a bad precedent for Gargoyle Chronicles. I want these posts to be honest accounts of what happened. If I'm going to hold myself to that, I can't justify a Mulligan for any reason.

The next question is, am I allowed to pass, or am I ethically obligated to treat partner's four-heart bid as a splinter? Partner didn't alert, so I have no unauthorized information from that perspective. How about from the tooltip, explaining what partner's bid meant? While the tooltip is what woke me up, that information is not unauthorized. The whole point of supplying that information is so I can use it. It's a peculiarity of this tournament format. So, yes, I'm allowed to wake up and pass.

I pass, and RHO leads the four of hearts.

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

West	North	East	South
Robot	Phillip	Robot	Robot
1 ♦	2 ♦ [sic]	Pass	4 ♥
(All pass)

If I can take five heart tricks, three diamond tricks, and one spade, I'm up to nine tricks. If I can guess the spade jack or find an extra diamond trick, I might end up actually making this.

I could play low from dummy and ride this to my hand. But West is unlikely to have led from the trump queen, so I might as well rise with the ace and lead a heart to my jack to make communication easier. I play the heart ace, and East follows with the deuce. Now the nine of hearts--six--jack--seven. I cash the heart king, and West follows.That's good news.

What should I pitch from dummy? I can't afford to pitch a spade. It's hard to see how dummy's sixth diamond is going to matter. It's hard to see how dummy's second club is going to matter either, but something tells me it might. So I pitch a diamond. Frankly, I chose a diamond discard more from instinct than from analysis. At the time, I wasn't sure why I needed two clubs in dummy, even though, as we shall see, it turns out to be important.

East follows with the heart queen. The opponents have 17 HCP. West appears to be balanced, so he has 12 to 14, leaving East with at most 5. I've seen only two high-card points from East, so he could still have the diamond king.

I lead the diamond four. West plays the nine. Is he splitting from king-ten-nine fourth for fear I'm looking at his hand and will insert the eight? I play the queen, and East follows with the three. Yes, it appears West had king-ten-nine fourth. He must be 2-3-4-4, 3-3-4-3, or 4-3-4-2. (He might open one diamond with 1-3-4-5, but since he didn't lead a spade, I'll assume he doesn't have that pattern.) East has at most three HCP, so he might have the club queen and a black jack or both black jacks.

I have no way of knowing who has the spade jack. But finessing West for it is dangerous. If East gains the lead with the spade jack, he can put a club through. Now I lose three clubs and two spades for down two. It's safer to finesse against East. If the finesse loses, I'm down only one. East can't gain the lead for a club shift, so I can repeat the diamond finesse for a ninth trick.

If the finesse against East wins, I'm in great shape. Say I play a spade to the ten and West takes the ace and plays another spade. I win in my hand, finesse the diamond, cash the diamond ace, and ruff a diamond. Now I have the spade queen as an entry to dummy's last diamond. Making an overtrick.

To deprive me of my late dummy entry, West must duck the spade ten. Now I repeat the diamond finesse, cash the ace, ruff a diamond, and lead the spade king. West can duck again to keep me off dummy. But if West started with only three spades, a third spade will endplay him, forcing him to give me the club king.

To summarize, if I play West for the spade jack, I might might go down two. If I play East for it, I take nine tricks if I'm wrong and ten or eleven if I'm right. It's true there might be no difference between down one and down two, so perhaps I shouldn't worry about that. But East does have more small spades than West on average, so I decide to finesse against him. I lead the eight of spades from dummy. East plays the three. I finesse the ten, and West wins with the jack. Oh, well. I guess I'm down.

West cashes the spade ace--nine--deuce--four. He now plays another spade. Oops. I think that was an error. He was supposed to play a diamond to kill my squeeze entry. This is the current position, with the lead in my hand. I'll arbitrarily give East the last spade. It makes no difference if West has it.

	NORTH Phillip ♠ -- ♥ -- ♦ A J 8 7 ♣ 6 5
WEST Robot ♠ -- ♥ -- ♦ K 10 5 ♣ A x x		EAST Robot ♠ x ♥ -- ♦ -- ♣ x x x x x
	SOUTH Robot ♠ -- ♥ 10 5 ♦ 6 ♣ K 8 7

I can cash two trumps, pitching a club and a diamond from dummy. West must stiff his club ace to hold all his diamonds. Now I can play a diamond to the eight and exit with a club, forcing him to lead into my ace-jack of diamonds to make four.

I cash a trump. West pitches the club four. I pitch a club from dummy. On the last trump, I expect a club pitch, but West pitches the diamond five. I suppose he is hoping I began with a singleton diamond. I pitch dummy's last club and the diamonds are good. Making five.

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

Unsurprisingly, this is worth 100%. One other player reached four hearts after the identical accident, but he went down four. He played low from dummy on the heart lead and could no longer make it. It pays to keep a level head when accidents happen.

I said earlier holding two clubs in dummy was important. Why? West allowed this endplay by gratuitously playing the diamond nine on the first diamond trick. Suppose he had played small. He would then be holding king-ten-nine in the diagrammed position, and the endplay wouldn't work. But I could still make four on a different squeeze. I cash one trump, pitching a diamond from dummy. On the last trump, West must stiff his club ace. I now come down to two diamonds and two clubs in dummy and duck out the the club ace to score the last three tricks. Note if dummy holds a stiff club in the diagrammed position, this squeeze doesn't work.

While I didn't see this at the time I made the critical discard, I suspect I had this matrix in mind unconsciously when I decided the second club might be important.