A Variety of Lessons


Q 3
A Q 6 3
A K 7 5 3
10 3
7 9 8 5 4 2
8 7 5 K J 10 9 2
9 8 4 2 J 10
K J 8 6 4 7
A K J 10 6
4 Vulnerability: N-S
Q 6 Opening lead: various
A Q 9 5 2 Contract: 3 no dbld, redbld, 6 S & 6 no (by N)
6 H dbld ( bid by E),

This hand became rather interesting because of the various lessons illustrated, both in the bidding and the play of the hand. The first result that caught my eye was 3 no, doubled and redoubled, making two overtricks, for a better score than those making slam. The double was made by the East player above after nothing but passes from his partner and himself. I've gotta suspect that somewhere he read that the double of a 3 no contract calls for a lead through dummy's first bid suit if the defending side hasn't bid. So the double was made and redoubled, a heart lead was made by West, and declarer went up with the ace, came to the Q of diamonds and ducked a diamond to East's 10. East could then cash only one heart trick, so shifted to a club. Declarer again went up with the ace in an A Q holding, went to the Q of spades and ran three diamond tricks and then four spade tricks, giving up a club trick at the end. Declarers winners were 5 spades, four diamonds and two aces.
Not a very wise idea. Lemme refer to the common presumption of 26 hcp's needed for a 3 no game. East has all of 5 hcp's and his partner hasn't made a bid. So if they need somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 hcp's to beat three no, where is there the expectation that West, who had the whole 2 level open to him on his first opportunity, had at least 11 hcp's? He had in fact one less hcp than East! It was a totally ridiculous presumption. Of course East shouldn't even need this much thought. With five hcp's, you don't double a 3-level bid expecting to pick up five tricks, do you? Against a slam, it might work on a sporting chance. But declarer can lose four tricks and still make his bid, and East had better have a far stronger presumption of getting five tricks than a powerful holding in dummy's first bid suit. Declarer could indeed have taken the heart lead and handed the rest of the heart suit to East and still have made his bid.

Another disaster was invited by someone else falling too much in love with that heart holding -- well on it & the 5-5 major-suit holding -- on this bidding:
NorthEastSouthWest
1 NT 2 * 6 Pass
Pass 6 * Dbl Pass
Pass 6 Dbl All pass
* Alerted

The two diamond bid is Cappelletti for the majors, of course. It's perhaps a tad aggressive, though not outrageous at that vulnerability. But six diamonds (i.e., rebidding her request for a major)? Opposite a partner who heard the first request and didn't feel impelled to move. Now, that's outrageous. That is a bit much for five hcp's. Oh, but that's a sac bid! And with favorable vulnerability! Oh, yes, of course. A sac bid. And that's why the original 2 diamond bid is marginally tolerable. But four levels higher on what was already a bit aggressive? Believe you me, the favorable vulnerability doesn't protect against disaster. Here, this declarer was down 1400 points, more than 6 clubs would have garnered even if it made with an overtrick, though less than a spade or no trump slam would have been worth, had they been in it and made it. But they weren't in six spades or no trump, but in a deucedly inferior contract.
Should West have doubled 6 clubs to warn his partner off coming back in? I would have to say no. They're in the wrong spot. Doubling a slam can be very risky, not too rarerly inducing a declarer to run to a makable 6 no. Here, South may have run to 6 spades, a beatable contract, I would say, but far more playable than 6 clubs. I think West acted properly. But East? Ach! There are about five things wrong with the bid, starting with the paucity of hcp's and continuing with the simple fact that the values of her hand had already been bid, not to mention the opponents being in the wrong spot. But East didn't know they were in the wrong spot. Certainly, that's true enough. But given that there were already two strikes against the bid and given that the opponents didn't explore for their best fit and had reached the 6 level by a wild leap, that should have been enough to discourage all but the wildest of bidders from continuing.

Here's a declarer in six spades, played from the North hand above, which should make following the play a little easier. Now six spades, with both A Q finesses off and diamonds 4-2, looks beatable -- with good defense. Opening lead was the 7 of clubs, declarer going up and leading five rounds of trump, then five rounds of diamonds, which with the ace of hearts means slam. Five rounds of diamonds? Oh, yes, yes, yes.
One of the salient features of defense the importance of which I became aware of largely through OKBridge and the ability to run through the play of any hand is the value of Four-Card Suits, q.v. When I first inaugurated this page, I had so many instances of indifference to four-card suits that I had to quit collecting them. And here is another where that indifference was very, very expensive. I have discussed at the link just given how important such holdings are and so won't go into that here but only look to see if West, on the above layout, should have known to keep his diamonds. And the answer can only be yes, yes, yes.
First, on the run of spades, West should certainly discard his three hearts. How on earth can a twice-guarded 8 be expected to win a trick. To be sure, sometimes you'll want to keep a low spot to hit your partner when you get the lead, but you've got to win a trick to get the lead, and had better keep that as your focus. Now look at the difference between an 8-high three card holding and a 9-high four-card holding. The 8 with two guards can be a winner only if six higher cards are played in the first two rounds of the suit. Six. All six. In two rounds. The 9 can be a winner if only five higher cards are played in the first three rounds of the suit. Now compare the two. How often have you seen the top six cards in a suit go in two rounds? As for five honors going in two rounds, that is far, far more common. It only is necessary for partner to have two honors. They don't have to be the J 10. They could be the A 10, the K 10, whatever. It is only necessary that the first two rounds gobble up two honors each, and a fifth on the third round, which is what happens here. When I look at West's play and see that the final three cards were the 8 7 5 of hearts, I can only shake my head. Oh, yes, he could afford to discard his high clubs when declarer sluffed a club on the third round of spades and then lost his last entry to dummy. Brave fellow. But the 8 7 5 of hearts? Better than a thrice-guarded 9 of diamonds?
And the fifth card to the fifth spade should be a club from the five-card holding, leaving West with four cards in each minor. And if declarer leads the ace of hearts? Is West squeezed? No, not at all. You can see that he has the K J of clubs sitting over the Q after that opening lead. He doesn't need more than two clubs. So there should have been no problem defeating this contract when declarer has to run all his spades and hence won't even be able to set up a fourth diamond winner by ruffing the fourth round. After declarer runs one club, five spades and three diamonds he's going to run out of steam.

And lastly, there was a declarer making 6 no (which is substantially the same as 6 spades on that unfavorable break, the only difference being that declarer in the trump contract must get the trump out before fiddling around too much). Anyway, here's what happened there: Diamond J opening lead to the Q, club hook into the J, heart back, finesse declined, and now the story's much the same. Run five spades, then four more diamonds and take the ace of clubs. Actually, this West player showed a stronger vector toward saving diamonds, but not quite strong enough, since it only takes one diamond discard to hand the contract over. On the run of spades, this defender pitched first two clubs, then a heart and now a low diamond at trick 8, to save the 7 of hearts. For what? Who knows?

Four-card suits! Four-card suits! Unless it's a 5-high holding, or more commonly your highest card is lower than dummy's lowest on its four-card holding (and there are probably a few other exceptions, not to mention the times you hold two four-card side suits), you'll want to pay close attention to saving that holding if you can.
Couldn't declarer have run five spades, one heart and 3 diamonds and thrown West in with a fourth diamond to accept a lead into the A Q of clubs? Wouldn't West then wish he'd kept a heart exit card? No, declarer has no entry to the last diamond, but yes, there is a chance of a misplay. West would then have K J 8 in clubs and must smother the 10 in dummy. Leading a low club would allow declarer to win with the 10, cash the 5th diamond and then go to the A of clubs. West must play the K or J. Declarer would then have to surrender the last club in his hand to West for down one. And yes, saving a heart exit card would have worked as well.