Free Weekly Instant Tournament - March 15 - Board 7

Board 7
Opponents vulnerable

♠ K 2  ♥ 10 7 6 5  ♦ K 4  ♣ A K 8 5 4

I open with one club. Partner bids one heart. I raise to two hearts and buy it. RHO leads the queen of clubs.

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

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

This lead is probably a singleton. Leading dummy's primary suit would be strange otherwise. And that means it's a fair assumption that trumps are three-two. With four trumps, West would be more interested in tapping me than in looking for ruffs.

If trumps are indeed splitting, I will lose a club, a diamond, a heart, and one or two spades. Dummy's last trump will take care of my third spade, and I can set up a club for the fourth spade. My plan, then, is to cash the ace and king of hearts, then lead a club and duck it, preserving communication to ruff out the club suit.

Cashing the ace and king of hearts will work out poorly if I'm wrong about three-two trumps. Can I afford to cash only one trump? If I cash one heart and play a club, West will pitch. Now I can't afford to duck. If I do, I let West score a ruff with a doubleton trump or two ruffs with three trumps. So all I've accomplished by cashing only one trump is to prevent myself from being able to duck a club. True, I might manage without ducking a club, but it certainly makes my handling easier. Since I'm pretty sure trumps are splitting, I'll back my judgment and cash both trump honors.

I win with the ace of clubs. East plays the deuce, and I follow with the three. Now ace and king of hearts. West plays four, jack; East plays eight, nine.

I play a club toward dummy. To my surprise, West follows with the ten. So West was making a passive lead from a sequence? Now I'm happy I cashed both trumps. If East is the one with a stiff club, cashing only one trump could have proven awkward.

I duck as planned, and East follows with the nine. It appears West's lead was from queen-jack-ten.

West cashes the queen of hearts, and East pitches the diamond deuce. West now cashes the diamond ace. We've reached this position with dummy to play:

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

If the spade ace is onside, I'll lose this trick and a spade and make an overtrick. If it's offside, I'll presumably lose two spades and make my contract. Do I have any chance to avoid a second spade loser if the ace is offside? 

What if West switches to a spade and I duck in dummy? East may play the ace for fear of losing it when I have the queen. Is that possible from East's perspective? Yes, provided he doesn't know I hold the diamond queen. I can't have both queens, else I would have made a game try over two hearts. So I must avoid the lazy play of unblocking the diamond king on this trick. Fortunately, I don't need the diamond queen as a hand entry. I can always ruff the fifth club if I need to play a spade toward the king myself.

I play low from dummy on the diamond ace. East plays the six, and I follow with the three. West now shifts to the eight of spades.

The moment of truth. Do I go for the swindle or take my legitimate chance that West has underled the spade ace? I don't see how he can afford to underlead. For all he knows, I have queen third of spades and have no guess. If so, I'll take the rest.

I play low from dummy. East inserts the jack then cashes the ace. Making two.

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

Minus 110 is worth 61%. I see West's opening club lead was from queen-ten doubleton. That's a holding that never occurred to me.

The spade eight was a poor choice for West's shift. He should help his partner out by leading his lowest spade if he holds the queen and the highest spot he can afford if he doesn't. With this hand, he should lead the four. But the robots don't signal, so East could conclude nothing from his partner's spot. He simply had to work out what to do as best he can. Perhaps he thought his partner might have bid at some point with five spades. As long as the missing spades are four-four, playing the jack can't cost. He can't lose the ace even if I do have the queen.

West has a harder problem: deciding whether to lead spades at all or to exit passively after cashing the diamond ace. I have only two pitches. So if I have four spades, leading a spade can never gain. And if my four spades includes the jack, leading a spade might cost.

How can the defense solve this? West actually should have gotten this right, given the robots' peculiar discarding tendencies. The robots signal count on their first discard, so, when East pitches the diamond deuce on the queen of hearts, West knows East is 3-2-5-3 (assuming he would pitch a low spade from 5-2-3-3). Thus West knows the spades can't go away, and he should exit passively with a diamond.

Most of us humans don't play that way, however. We give attitude when discarding. But that works on this deal also. On the queen of hearts, East should pitch a discouraging diamond, suggesting tolerance for a spade shift. Since East is marked with the spade ace on the auction, he wouldn't suggest a spade shift with just the ace. West needs no help finding a spade shift from queen-jack. So a discouraging diamond should show at least the ace-jack of spades, and West knows a spade shift is safe. 

So either count or attitude solves West's problem. Even though each leads to a different solution.