Board 9
Opponents vulnerable
| ♠ K Q 10 8 ♥ K 9 ♦ A J 5 ♣ Q 7 5 3 |
Partner passes, and RHO opens with one club. I overcall with one notrump. This is passed around to RHO, who balances with two clubs. I pass, and LHO bids two spades.
That's a strange call. He should have some game interest. If not, he would pass two clubs. Or, with a good spade suit, he could have bid a non-forcing two spades on the previous round. But if he does have a good hand, why didn't he double one notrump?
RHO is having none of this. He goes back to three clubs, which ends the auction.
Leading LHO's best suit doesn't appeal, but every other lead looks worse, so I lead the king of spades.
| NORTH Robot ♠ J 7 6 5 3 ♥ A 10 8 5 2 ♦ 6 2 ♣ 4 |
||
| WEST Phillip ♠ K Q 10 8 ♥ K 9 ♦ A J 5 ♣ Q 7 5 3 |
||
| West | North | East | South |
| Phillip | Robot | Robot | Robot |
| Pass | 1 ♣ | ||
| 1 NT | Pass | Pass | 2 ♣ |
| Pass | 2 ♠ | Pass | 3 ♣ |
| (All pass) |
Interesting. He has neither a good hand nor a good spade suit.
One of my partners liked to play that a raise of partner's minor after a one-notrump overcall showed five-five or better in the majors. In essence, it's Michaels in partner's suit. The idea was that you are unlikely to want to raise partner's minor to the two-level. If you have a fit and a good hand, you would prefer to double. If you have a fit and a bad hand, you would prefer to make a pre-emptive raise to the three-level. This would be a good agreement to have with this hand. Maybe South will suggest it after the deal is over. ("If you're so determined to bid with that hand, partner, why don't we play...?")
Declarer plays the jack from dummy. Surely that's not a congratulatory jack. Do the robots play that convention? Partner plays the nine; declarer, the four,
I continue with the eight of spades. Partner plays the ace and declarer ruffs with the club eight.
Assuming my club queen is our only club trick, we'll need to find three tricks in the red suits to beat this. If declarer has queen-jack third of hearts, we'll have to find our tricks in the diamond suit. That means when I win my club queen, I will need to switch to a low diamond, playing partner for the king. If partner has a heart honor, however, I'd rather defend passively and let partner lead diamonds from his side.
In my regular partnerships, I would already know that a diamond shift from my side can't be right. Partner played the spade nine at trick one from ace-nine-deuce, so can't have the king of diamonds and nothing in hearts. If he did, he would have discouraged to suggest we need to go after diamond tricks.
What would he do with the queen of diamonds? After all, if I have king-jack instead of ace-jack, it might be nice to let me know I can play the suit. The answer is, it depends on his heart holding. If he has the heart suit bottled up, he would encourage in spades. There is no rush to attack diamonds from my side if declarer isn't getting discards on dummy's hearts. But if the heart suit looks like a potential source of tricks, he might decide to encourage with just the queen.
The bottom line is: if he encourages, a shift from the ace can't be right. If discourages, it's less clear what to do. With the king, I can shift. But with the ace, I must use my judgment. If my own heart holding suggests there is no urgency in shifting to diamonds, then I won't. I must also take into account that he might have overtaken my spade king and shifted himself if it appeared safe to do so.
Attitude signals at trick one are not just about the suit led or even just about the obvious-shift suit. They are a holistic statement, offering partner's opinion on the overall defensive strategy. Partner may encourage because he wants you to continue the suit led. He may encourage because he doesn't want you to make the obvious shift. Or he may encourage because he knows dummy's suit is not a source of tricks and there is no need for an active defense. That's why I shake my head when I hear the comment, "How can my card be attitude when you know what I have?" Well, maybe I know what you have in the suit led, but that's only a small part of the picture. Attitude, if played with intelligence and flair, conveys much more than that.
My robot partner's nine, however, probably just meant he had the spade ace if it meant anything at all. So I'll have to use other means to decide what to do.
Declarer cashes the ace and king of clubs. Partner plays deuce-six. Declarer leads the club jack to my queen and pitches the eight of hearts from dummy. The eight? There seems to be a theme here with discards from dummy.
Partner pitches the four of hearts. He has a perfectly safe spade discard available, so the four of hearts should mean that partner can offer no help in the heart suit. Since robots pitch count cards, the four should be low from three small, in which case I must shift to a low diamond.
Robots don't discard to help partner, however. I suspect if partner was 3-3-5-2, he would be pitching from his five-card diamond suit. The heart four is probably the dreaded bloodless count signal from xx43. If so, then declarer has a doubleton heart, which means he can't run the heart suit.
At least not right away. What if he has
| ♠ x ♥ Q J ♦ K x x x ♣ A K J 10 x x ? |
If I get out passively with a spade, declarer can draw my trump, then lead the queen of hearts and duck when I cover. Now the heart suit is good, but declarer is tapped out. I can cash my last spade and the diamond ace for five tricks. As long as I'm right that declarer has only two hearts, it can't hurt to tap him with a spade.
I lead the queen of spades, and declarer ruffs with the club nine. He draws my last trump, and partner pitches the eight of diamonds. That's looks like another count card, so my construction seems to be correct. Partner was 3-4-4-2. We've reached this position with declarer on lead:
| NORTH Robot ♠ 3 ♥ A 10 5 2 ♦ 6 ♣ -- |
||
| WEST Phillip ♠ 10 ♥ K 9 ♦ A J 5 ♣ -- |
EAST Robot ♠ -- ♥ ? ? ? ♦ ? ? ? ♣ -- |
|
| SOUTH Robot ♠ -- ♥ ? ? ♦ ? ? ? ? ♣ -- |
Declarer leads the queen of hearts. I cover with the king, and he ducks in dummy. Partner plays the six. Declarer is out of trumps, so I can cash my spade winner. Partner pitches the four of diamonds; declarer pitches the nine of diamonds.
The diamond ace is the setting trick, but it isn't going away. Even if declarer has the jack of hearts, dummy has a diamond loser after he runs the suit. I might as well exit with a heart in case partner has the jack and can lead diamonds through declarer.
I exit with the nine of hearts. Somewhat to my surprise, declarer finesses the ten and loses to partner's jack. Partner shifts to the queen of diamonds. Declarer covers and I score my ace and jack of diamonds, but I have to concede a diamond to declarer at trick thirteen.
I see. The heart finesse was free. Declarer lost the heart ace but got a diamond trick at the end instead. Down three.
| NORTH Robot ♠ J 7 6 5 3 ♥ A 10 8 5 2 ♦ 6 2 ♣ 4 |
||
| WEST Phillip ♠ K Q 10 8 ♥ K 9 ♦ A J 5 ♣ Q 7 5 3 |
EAST Robot ♠ A 9 2 ♥ J 6 4 3 ♦ Q 10 8 4 ♣ 6 2 |
|
| SOUTH Robot ♠ 4 ♥ Q 7 ♦ K 9 7 3 ♣ A K J 10 9 8 |
Declarer made a mistake in pitching dummy's fifth spade. If, in the diagrammed end position, dummy had two spades instead of a spade and a diamond, I would be in trouble after winning the heart king. If I cash my spade, I set up a spade winner in dummy. If I exit with a heart, declarer rises with the ace and tosses me in with a spade to force a diamond return. Either way, he gets out for down two.
North's weird two-spade bid worked out quite well for a strange reason. If he passes two clubs, partner should double, showing a doubleton club, support for the other suits, and 7 or 8 HCP. (Perhaps the robots don't play that way. I don't think it's come up before, so I don't know. But that is my agreement with my human partners.) I will pass the double, knowing we have the balance of power and the opponents are in a seven-card fit. Then we collect 500 if declarer plays the same way. North's clever two-spade bid allowed them to escape for 300. Maybe the spade jack at trick one was a congratulatory jack after all.
It may seem odd that it's easier to double two clubs than three clubs. But if North passes two clubs, partner should double to compete--to find a playable partscore ourselves or to push them up to three clubs. He's not trying to penalize them. The fact that I can pass and collect a number is just a lucky consequence. When the opponents reach the three-level on their own steam, our work is done. Partner certainly has no desire to compete at the three level, and he has no particular reason to believe they are overboard by three tricks. So he has no reason to double.
Jazlene chose to pass over one club, and her auction proceeded one spade--pass--two clubs--all pass. So she collected only 200. As a result, I pick up 3 imps on this board, reducing my deficit to 2.
I'm not sure why Jazlene didn't overcall one notrump. I do know she plays raptor with her regular partner, so perhaps she has a philosophical dislike of natural notrump overcalls. I quite like them myself. In fact, I go out of my way to overcall with one notrump, frequently overcalling offshape with I hand I wouldn't open one notrump. I can't imagine giving them up. At least not at IMPs. When you have a strong notrump behind an opening bid, partner doesn't need much to produce game. In fact, it's normal for him to bid game with about a point less than he would after a one-notrump opening. How are you supposed to get to game with this hand opposite a flat nine-count if you don't overcall one notrump?
On this deal, we don't have a game, but the overcall had the secondary benefit of making it easy for partner to compete for the partscore. The opponents took the push all on their own. But, even if they hadn't, partner wasn't selling out to two clubs after my overcall.
For Jazlene's analysis of Board 9, see JazPlaysBridge.
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