Free Weekly Instant Tournament - April 21 - Board 2

This week I'm returning to reporting on the Weekly Free Instant Tournament on BBO. If you haven't played it yet, you may wish to do so before reading on.

Board one was boring. After a Blackwood auction, you can bid seven notrump and claim before the opening lead is made. So I'm going to skip to

Board 2
Our side vulnerable

♠ K 7 3  ♥ Q J 9 8 6  ♦ Q 2  ♣ A J 4

RHO passes. I bid one heart. Partner responds with one spade and I bid one notrump. Partner bids two clubs, artificial and forcing, I bid two spades, and partner raises to four.

LHO leads the five of diamonds.

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

West	North	East	South
Robot	Phillip	Robot	Robot
Pass	1 ♥	Pass	1 ♠
Pass	1 NT	Pass	2 ♣
Pass	2 ♠	Pass	4 ♠
(All pass)

I'm off the diamond ace and possibly the club king. If those are my only losers, I'm making five. But I might have a trump loser, and I need to find some way to dispose of my fourth-round diamond loser. The fourth round of clubs isn't an issue if the club finesse loses, but if it wins I'd like to find a way of avoiding that loser as well.

The diamond five could be low, or it could be high from five-three doubleton. I can ruff my fourth diamond in dummy, but I'd prefer not to, since there is a variety of ways doing so could create a trump loser. There is no particular reason to unblock by playing dummy's queen. I might as well play low and hope East takes his ace, obviating the need for a ruff. He probably will take the ace, since he doesn't know who has the king.

I play low from dummy. East indeed plays the ace. Which diamond should I play? If the five is high from five-three doubleton, I want to conceal my eight, making it possible that the lead is low from three. If the five is low from three small, I want to conceal my four, making it's possible that the lead is from a doubleton. It probably won't matter, but if you make a practice of keeping the opponents in the dark whenever possible, it pays dividends. In this case, I'm not sure what the lead is from. But the robots like leading from small doubletons, so I'll assume that's what West has and play the four, concealing the eight.

East shifts to the club eight. This is probably from shortness, quite likely from a singleton in the hope that West has a trump entry. If so, I have three club tricks. Is it possible to avoid losing the fourth round of clubs?

One possibility is to play a heart from dummy at some point and hope East hops with the ace. Then I can ruff and, if West has the heart king, maybe I can squeeze him in hearts and clubs. In general, trump squeezes require two dummy entries. To see why, consider this four-card position with the lead in your hand:

(A)

	NORTH Phillip ♠ -- ♥ Q J ♦ -- ♣ A 4
	SOUTH Robot ♠ 9 ♥ -- ♦ -- ♣ Q 10 6

West can hold king-nine third of clubs and the heart king and there is no way to take the rest. In this position, however, you do have the rest:

(B)

	NORTH Phillip ♠ -- ♥ Q J ♦ -- ♣ A J
	SOUTH Robot ♠ 9 ♥ -- ♦ -- ♣ Q 6 2

The second club entry makes the difference. If West holds two clubs, you can take the finesse, cash the ace, dropping his king, and ruff back to your hand. If he holds three clubs, you can lead to the jack, ruff out his heart king, and return to dummy with the club ace.

This position (with the club king already played) works as well:

(C)

	NORTH Phillip ♠ -- ♥ Q J ♦ -- ♣ J 4
	SOUTH Robot ♠ 9 ♥ -- ♦ -- ♣ Q 6 2

With the clubs unblocked, this is now a simple squeeze. All you have to do is cash the last trump.

What this means is I can't afford to play low on this trick. If I do, West will simply duck, and I will wind up in position (A) with no squeeze. If I play the ten or queen, I reach either position (B) or (C), depending on whether West covers or not. In either case, the squeeze will operate--provided I can isolate the heart guard.

Accordingly, I play the ten. West covers with the king and I take the ace. The heart ruff can wait. I should make sure I don't have an issue in the trump suit first. I play a low spade from dummy--five--ace--deuce. Now the spade four--eight--king--ten. Trumps are breaking, so I might as well ruff the heart now. The sooner I do that the better, since the less East knows about the layout, the more likely he is to hop with the ace.

I play the heart six. East plays the ace, and I ruff. The deal is over. Here is the current position:

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

I draw the last trump, play a diamond to dummy, and return to my hand with a heart ruff.  Oops. That was careless. Any time you say to yourself "the deal is over," you set yourself up to make a mistake. I should have led the heart queen, just in case East began with ace-king and decides to cover. Of course I am always going to ruff it. But why not give East a chance to make a mistake?

Fortunately West has the king. I cash my diamonds, squeezing West, and take the rest. Making six.

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

It turns out I didn't need East to hop with the heart ace. He began with only two trumps, so if he doesn't hop, I can still make six by leaving the last trump outstanding and ruffing a club in dummy. It doesn't hurt to try this. If East gets a club ruff, the trick comes back, since I can now ruff my club loser.

My only alternative is to play West for both heart honors and continue with my plan of squeezing him. Normally I would assume West couldn't have ace-king of hearts and not have led the suit. But dummy did bid hearts, so I can't make that assumption here. Still, a doubleton trump in East's hand is more likely. So, even though I hadn't decided what I would do if East didn't hop, I suspect I would have opted for the club ruff.

Making six is worth 89%.  Some declarers dropped a trick by putting up the diamond queen at trick one. Every declarer who got past that test failed the second test by playing low on the club shift. Unfortunately, they weren't punished. West foolishly played the king, giving declarer the whole club suit. Had West played low, those declarers probably would have been held to eleven tricks. I doubt they would have found the partial trump elimination. It's not an especially good field, as evidenced by the fact that the boring board one, which should have been flat, was worth 100%.