Free Weekly Instant Tournament - March 3 - Board 4

Board 4
Both vulnerable

♠ A 7 4  ♥ A 3 2  ♦ A K Q 7  ♣ J 4 3

Three passes to me. I open with one diamond. Partner bids one notrump. I raise to two notrump, and partner goes on to three. RHO leads the six of hearts.

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

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

I have two heart tricks, four diamonds, and two spades. I need one more trick. I play a low heart from dummy, and East plays the seven.

It appears West has led from king-jack-eight-six. East's seven is probably showing count with a doubleton,which means West has five hearts. It shouldn't matter whether I win this trick with the ten or nine. West will know my holding either way. And East doesn't care. He will lead a second heart as soon as he gets in. I arbitrarily choose the ten.

I need to develop a club trick to make this. My best chance is that the ace and king of clubs are in the same hand. It doesn't matter which hand. Either way, they will be unable both to establish and run the hearts. If that's the layout, it doesn't matter which hand I start clubs from.

Do I have any chance if the club honors are split? Normally one would play this suit by leading through the hand more likely to have a doubleton honor, so you can duck the honor out on the next round. West is more likely to have a doubleton than East. But in this case, ducking out his doubleton honor does me no good. I can't afford to lose the first club to East.

My best chance to avoid losing the first club to East is to get to dummy and lead a small club toward my hand. If East has the ace, he will probably hop. But he might not hop with the king. 

Even if I get the club past him, I will still need some luck to develop a club trick. I have to hope East began with a doubleton king, which is unlikely, or that clubs are three-three and West doesn't find a spade shift, depriving me of the necessary tempi.

Should I cash diamonds before playing clubs? Often, forcing the opponents to make early discards is a good idea. But my main concern here is to keep East from hopping with the club king. The less information he has the better. Cashing diamonds can only help him.

I play the diamond three--six--ace--deuce. Now the club three. East plays the nine. So far, so good. I play the queen; West, the five. 

That's my ninth trick. Apparently my legitimate chance came home. East has both club honors. If he has ace-king third, I can establish my fourth club and make an overtrick. Is there any danger in playing another club? East might have started with five. But, if so, he has only four tricks to cash, so I'll still make my contract. There's no hurry however. I might as well run the diamonds first and see what happens. 

I cash the king and queen of diamonds and play a diamond to my jack. On the third and fourth diamonds, East echoes in spades, playing six-five. On the last diamond, West pitches the eight of hearts.

If East was echoing to show four spades, then he is probably 4-2-2-5, making this the current layout:

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

If so, I can cash the king and ace of spades and toss West in to lead away from his heart king.

I cash the spade king--nine--four--three. Now a spade to the ace. West plays the ten; East, the deuce. No spades honors from East? Is it possible West began with queen-jack-ten fourth of spades and chose to lead a broken heart suit? He did have five hearts and only four spades. But the robots don't like aggressive leads against notrump, so I'm starting to suspect I was wrong about the spade split.

Perhaps West's echo was with six spades rather then four. That makes him 6-2-2-3 and his last five cards are queen-jack of spades, two clubs, and a heart. If so, exiting with a spade can't hurt. The defense will take two spades and two clubs and I'll get the heart ace in the end. It's safe to try for the endplay.

Or is it? Is it possible hearts are six-one? If so, East has all black cards and will clam if I exit with a spade. But I don't think that's the case. Holding

♠ Q J x x x x  ♥ x  ♦ x x  ♣ A K 10 9,

I'm pretty sure he would open the bidding. Besides, West's heart eight was probably present count from four hearts remaining, even though that's the wrong way to card.

I exit with a spade. West did indeed start with six spades. The defense takes their four tricks and I take the heart ace in the end. Making three.

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

I score 93%. So West held the club ace and ducked it! He could beat me by winning and playing spades. It never occurred to me that he had ducked the ace. Why not? Probably because I knew I didn't have king-queen or queen-ten. A classic blind spot: assuming the opponents can see my hand.

The blind spot might have been costly. Suppose, after winning the club queen, I had played another club, ducking in dummy, instead of cashing the diamonds. If East were clever enough to win with the king rather than the ten to put a heart through, I might play a third club and go down.

I said West's heart eight was the wrong way to card with four hearts remaining. I should explain that.

The robots and most human players don't know this. But if you lead fourth best from five, you should play your lowest card next instead of giving present count. Since you have no choice but to play up with four, you must play down with five to distinguish between the two. Playing up when you are known to have length shows six. The principle is that you want your ambiguities to be two-card ambiguities, not one-card ambiguities. Partner can probably tell from other clues whether you have four or six. It may be harder to distinguish four from five or five from six. So you don't want to card the same way with those holdings.

Of course, as always, you may decide that declarer cares more about your count than partner does. But if you want to tell partner what you have, the recommended approach is the way to do it. Standard present count doesn't work.