Gainesville Bridge Club

The Kibitzer is Shirley Wright

Jon Shuster

Shirley Wright is a fictitious character who watches actual bridge hands played at the Gainesville Bridge Clubs and at tournaments in Florida.  Visit www.gainesvillebridge.com under Bridge Tips for many other examples.

Jon: I’ll let Shirley take over.

Shirley:  Today, Tuesday 10/10/06, there were two hands that are interesting from a Matchpoint perspective.  I will let you try to give me a plan, and I will tell you how you do.  Note that overtricks in normal contracts are very important.

Hand 1:  Neither Vul

North

S-843

H-K103

D-9432

C-AK3

South

S-AK62

H-QJ985

D-None

C-J764

North dealt and passed.  South opened 1H in third position, and North bid 2H, a fairly conservative but correct call at matchpoints.  Partner is allowed to open light in third position, and if that happens, getting a plus score is the most critical consideration.

West led the DK.  What is your plan?

Hand 2:  Both Vul:

North

S-QJ83

H-AQ76

D-72

C-AQJ

South

S-None

H-98543

D-AJ653

C-K54

The bidding went as follows:

Table 1:

West                North               East                 South

1D                   Dble                Pass                 1H

Pass                 2H                   Pass                 4H

Pass                 Pass                 Pass

I do not care for South’s 1H bid.  This is an underbid, and South was fortunate to get another bid.  It also allows the opponents to get together more cheaply in Spades.  The correct call is 2H, which shows a good 8 to 11 points, and is non-forcing.  With 12+ South would cue bid 2D.  This hand is worth 11 points.

The DK was led. Solutions:

Hand 1:  If you drew trump, you will make +110, four Heart tricks and your two AK’s.   You have a very important inference on this hand.  Your non-vulnerable opponents were silent, and held 9 Diamonds.  This means the cards should be breaking evenly.

The recommended line of play is to make sure you score your two AK’s plus at least five trump tricks.  Also, while you are ruffing, you don’t want pitches of Black suits, allowing your Black suit winners to get ruffed.

Method 1 (Dummy reverse):  ruff the Diamond, play the S-AK (no ruff will occur, and a Club to the A, ruff a Diamond (your second ruff), play a Club to the K and ruff a third Diamond (the only overruff that could occur is the A).  At this point, you have won the first 7 tricks, and are down to:

North

S-8

H-K103

D-9

C-3

South

S-62

H-QJ

D-None

C-J7

Play the CJ, and if the opponents fail to play the HA and another Heart, you will actually three more tricks for a total of 10.  Against most defenders at this club, you would come home with 10 tricks.

The declarer I witnessed made only eight tricks when trumps were drawn at trick 2, and the defender smartly played a second trump after winning the first with the Ace. Now declarer could not score more than four trump tricks.

Line 2:  It is acceptable to try to ruff a black card or two in dummy.  So you might cash your 4 Black winners at tricks 2-5, and concede a Club.  This line gives the opponents two chances to play the A and another Heart to hold you to three, so Line 1 is seen as superior. Hand 2:

Preamble (South’s proper analysis):  Most defenders would prefer to lead from the S-AK to D-KQ10 if they had that, to look at the dummy, before deciding how to continue.  Maybe partner has a doubleton spade.  So you should be quite certain that the Spade honors are divided.  How does that information help?  West opened the bidding, and there are a total of 24 HCP between you and dummy, and East has a Spade honor (say the K).  So that leaves only 13 possible points tops for West.  Ergo, West must have the HK.  Now East passed the double with a Spade honor.  Certainly, if East held 6 Spades to the K, she would have bid 1S over the double.  So Spades must be 5-4.  That is wonderful news.  Can you ruff Diamonds in dummy?  That is scary, because East will also be short in Diamonds.  But ruffing Spades in your hand is safe.

Here is the plan (Another dummy reversal) :  You can ruff four Spades in your hand.  That will give you at least 7 trump tricks plus three Clubs and a Diamond (11 in all).

So at trick 2, you lead a trump to the dummy planning to finesse.  This will be your only trump pull.  In actuality, West plays the K, and you win the A,  (Playing the HQ next, hoping the K is doubleton is acceptable, but not the kind of play greedy practical Matchpoint players should adopt).  Now you will ruff a Spade, and enter dummy three more times in Clubs to ruff Spades.  You have won the first 9 tricks,  two Hearts are outstanding, and the situation is with South to lead:

North

S-

H-Q76

D-7

C-

South

S-

H-

D-J653

C-

When you lead a Diamond to West, you will ruff whatever West returns, and East will score a trump trick, but you will score two more tricks for a total of eleven.

Actual Play:

The actual declarer won the opening Diamond lead, played a Club to the J, and a Diamond toward her hand (East sluffing a Club), won by West with East showing out.  West led a third Diamond (the 10, a suit preference for Spades), and declarer ruffed with the HQ, ending all prospects for five.  Interestingly, ruffing with the HQ was declarer’s second major mistake.  Had declarer just pitched a Spade, East ruffs with her Heart winner, and declarer can ruff the two remaining Diamond losers after trump were drawn.  Again declarer gets 7 trump tricks and 4 side winners!  A better play than the third round of Diamonds by West would have been to exit with a Club (preferably) or Heart.  This would hold declarer to ten tricks with proper defense from here.

South made yet another blunder when after ruffing third Diamond with the HQ, cashed  the HA, thereby ceding trump control.  (Add the trick with the HA to the diagram, and let declarer ruff a Spade and ruff a Diamond.  East can overruff, and return a trump, but declarer is in complete control, with only one round of Hearts ever pulled.  From here, proper defense actually sets the hand.     So declarer wound up making 10 tricks, thanks to a defensive error by East!

Here is the situation, after the HA was cashed,  with the lead in dummy, with South needing 6 of the last 8 tricks to make 4H.

North

S-QJ83

H-76

D-

C-AQ

West                                                                East

S-A1064                                                          S-K9752

H-                                                                    H-J10

D-Q9                                                               D-

C-109                                                              C-3

South

S-None

H-9854

D-J6

C-K5

In the actual play, declarer cashed the CA and overtook the Q with the K, (East pitching a Spade), and ruffed a Diamond, overruffed by East.  Instead of playing the trump J at this point for a sure set, East contributed yet another error by trying to give her partner the setting trick in Spades. (If EW had a Spade trick, it was not going anywhere.)  All together, West, South, and East contributed 6 errors.

 

 

Lessons: (1) In any suit contract with 3+ trump in each hand, mentally sit in both chairs and decide which hand to set up, or whether to execute a crossruff.  It is easy to count your potential tricks for each of the strategies and adopt the one with the greatest expectation.

(2) It is often possible to recover from errors.  This hand was a case in point, where declarer after making the first error, could have completely recovered, but for a second one.