Free Weekly Instant Tournament - September 19 - Board 2

Board 2
Our side vulnerable

♠ K 2  ♥ Q 9 6 4  ♦ A Q 5 4  ♣ J 10 3

The link to the YouTube episode for this deal is below:

I open one diamond in second seat. Partner bids two notrump, invitational. I have nothing extra, so I pass. RHO leads the six of spades.

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

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

I have seven top tricks. If the king of hearts is with West, I can develop the heart queen for my eighth. But if I lead to the queen of hearts and it loses to the king, I’m out of chances. The opponents will clear spades and have lots of black tricks ready to cash if I give up the lead again.

Is there anything else to try instead? There’s the intra-finesse in hearts. I can float the seven, then lead the queen, hoping to pin jack- or ten-doubleton on my left. True, that's an unlikely layout. It's much more likely the king is onside. But if I have some reason to believe it's offside, the intra-finesse is worth considering. If I lead a heart toward the queen and West ducks, is that sufficient reason? How likely is West to hop with the king if he has it?

Sometimes it's a bad idea at notrump to let declarer sneak a trick through early. Change the deal to something like this:

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

If the diamond finesse works, I have eight tricks. If I take the finesse and it loses, I'm likely to go down. So I might try a heart to the queen at trick two. If West has the king and ducks, I'm home. 

But in that layout, the heart play is suspicious. West knows I have at most three hearts. When declarer attacks a suit to develop only one trick, an alarm should go off. West should probably realize declarer is trying to sneak a trick through to gain a tempo. So he should hop and clear spades.

The actual deal isn't going to set off an alarm. There is nothing suspicious about attacking dummy's four-card suit, so West has no compelling reason to hop. If I play a heart toward dummy and West plays low, going for the intra-finesse would be well against the odds. 

Should I duck trick one? The opponents have communication in clubs, so I don’t see much to gain by ducking. I play low from dummy, East plays the jack, and I take the ace. West is marked with the ten, but I don't know who has the queen.

I could run diamonds first, then lead a heart to the ace and another heart. But I don't want to advertise that I'm wide open in clubs.

Next question: Should I play ace and a heart--or just lead a low one? A low heart to the queen would be embarrassing if East has a stiff king. But is that likely? It means West chose to lead a spade with jack-ten fifth of hearts. And cashing the ace first leaves me open to going down two or more if the queen loses to the king. Leading low looks better. And the eight looks better than the seven, since it might tempt West to cover with the ten.

I lead the eight of hearts. West hops with the king, and East plays the deuce. So I've made my contract. It's all about overtricks now.

West shifts to the queen of spades. I win in dummy, and East plays the four. So West has queen-ten of spades. He probably doesn't have the nine, else he would have led the ten. So the possibilities are Q106, Q1076, or Q10765. Q106 is unlikely. He might have led the ten to start an unblock if chose to lead from that holding.

I cash three rounds of diamonds, ending in dummy. Diamonds were three-three. On the fourth diamond, East pitches the five of spades. OK. We've eliminated Q10765 in the West hand. West appears to have started with four spades. I pitch the deuce of clubs: East pitches the eight of clubs.

We've reached this position with the lead in dummy:

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

I lead a heart from dummy--ten--ace--five. Now a heart from my hand. West plays the three. Do I finesse, playing West for king-jack fourth, or do I go up, playing for a three-three split?

 If my construction is right, West began with either

♠ Q 10 7 6  ♥ K J 5 3  ♦ 9 3 2  ♣ ? 8

or

♠ Q 10 7 6  ♥ K 5 3  ♦ 9 3 2  ♣ ? ? 8.

By restricted choice, the finesse is two-to-one to be right. The fact that a doubleton club is less likely than a tripleton reduces that somewhat. It's more like three to two. But more important than the a priori odds is the fact that hopping with king-jack fourth of hearts is dangerous. If East has ten doubleton, hopping lets me take three heart tricks; ducking holds me to two. It's true that hopping from king third takes me off a guess if his partner has the jack--a guess I rate to get wrong. So it's arguably a mistake to hop with either holding. But at least hopping with king third won't cost a trick by force. I think that's the mistake a robot, who doesn't think about taking you off guesses, is more apt to make. So it looks right to go up with the queen.

Another reason to go up: I'm in two notrump. Playing for overtricks in two notrump is seldom a good idea. You don't want to jeopardize your plus score when some will be going minus in a game. So, even if I thought finessing was the percentage play, it would have to be a pretty high percentage before I risked it.

I rise with the queen. East drops the jack. Making three.

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

Four pairs played three notrump and made it. That's taking quite a position to accept with the North hand. Maybe they though two notrump was forcing? Fortunately, five pairs managed to misplay two notrump. So plus 150 is worth 54%.