Free Weekly Instant Tournament - March 15 - Board 5

Board 5
Our side vulnerable

♠ A K 8 3  ♥ A 6 2  ♦ Q 10 5  ♣ A 4 2

Two passes to me. I open with one notrump, and partner bids two hearts, a transfer to spades.

I believe one should pre-accept on almost any hand with four spades. This hand, with four trumps and four-plus honor tricks, should meet anyone's standards. 

I bid three spades, partner goes on to four, and West leads the queen of clubs.

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

West	North	East	South
Robot	Robot	Robot	Phillip
	Pass	Pass	1 NT
Pass	2 ♥	Pass	3 ♠
Pass	4 ♠	(All pass)

I have two diamonds losers, so I need to hold my heart losers to one. If I can strip the hand, I might manage an endplay. There are two ways to play the heart suit in the end position. I can play a low heart from my hand, guess whether to play the ten or queen, and hope, if I guess wrong, that East has both honors and is endplayed. Or I can cash the ace and lead to the ten or queen, hoping, if I guess wrong, that East is out of hearts and must give me a ruff-sluff. For either plan to work, however, I need to have a trump left in each hand after drawing trump and ruffing two clubs. So I will need trumps to be two-two.

Should I ruff a club now while it's convenient? Let's see if I need to. If I win the second trump in my hand and trumps are indeed two-two, I can ruff one club at that point. Then, assuming from the opening lead that East has at least one diamond honor, I can always reach my hand with a diamond to ruff the second club. Since I have no entry problems, there is no need to ruff a club now. An early, gratuitous ruff might prove embarrassing if trumps don't split.

East plays the seven of clubs at trick one. I take the club ace, play a spade to dummy, and a spade back to my hand. They split.

Now a club ruff. West plays the three; East, the five.

I lead the deuce of diamonds. East hops with the king; West follows with the seven. East continues with the ace of diamonds. I play low, and West following with the eight. East continues the nine of diamonds to my queen, as West discards the nine of hearts. We've reached this position:

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

The nine of hearts is presumably count. If so, West is 2-4-2-5, and I'm cold. All I have to do is ruff a club, play a heart to my ace, then play a heart to the queen or ten. It makes no difference which, since if it loses, East has only minors left and is endplayed.

I ruff a club to dummy and play a heart. East plays the jack. I take the ace and claim ten tricks.

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

I guess East hopped with the jack to save himself the embarrassment of being endplayed.

Plus 620 was worth 82%. Strangely, quite a few players didn't pre-accept and languished in two spades.  

I see some declarers did ruff a club at trick two. Once I saw that the immediate ruff was unnecessary, I didn't bother to check if it might cost. Let's do that now.

Suppose I ruff a club at trick two, then draw trump. If trumps turn out to be three-one, I must draw three rounds. Then I drive a diamond honor, and the defense leads a third club to tap dummy, reaching this position:

	NORTH Robot ♠ -- ♥ Q 10 5 4 ♦ 4 2 ♣ --
	SOUTH Phillip ♠ 8 ♥ A 6 2 ♦ Q 10 ♣ --

I drive the other diamond. Now they tap my hand with a fourth club and I'm out of trumps. Even if I guess hearts correctly, I'm still going down if the hand with the heart king has the long club. So an immediate club ruff is an error. I could go down when I'm cold if I guess hearts.

Ruffing a club at trick two is the kind of error an expert can easily fall into when he's being lazy. Stripping the hand looks like a good idea. So why not ruff a club now, when you have the chance? Stopping to work out whether you're short of entries and need to ruff a club early is too much work.

Sometimes playing by instinct is unavoidable. You don't always know enough about the layout to tell whether or not you need to make some preparatory play, such as taking an early ruff or ducking a trick to prepare for a squeeze. So you have to rely more on instinct than on analysis. But this deal isn't one of those cases. If you bother to check, you can see easily enough that you aren't short of entries, so there is no hurry to ruff a club. 

Incidentally, I did misbid this hand, because I was unfamiliar with the robots' methods. I discovered later that they play two notrump over the transfer as a maximum with four trumps and "4333" distribution. So that's what I should have bid. It might allow partner, with a different hand, to choose three notrump rather than four spades.