Living on Jacks and Queens

[kenberg]

The BB is over! The last two hands were amazing!

Let's look at boards 31 and 32  of the last round.

http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?bbo=y&linurl=http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/vugraph_linfetch.php?id=53050



Board 31:

6H makes, and it will unless a heart trick is lost. If hearts are 2-1 no problem nd if they are 3-0 it is a 50-50 shot that declarer picks them up. He has to guess who to play for the length.

So why are they not there? Well, if the Q is the J they don't want to be, even if the J is the Q.


On to board 32:

7 may not be hopeless on the EW cards, but surely nobody wishes to be there. Otoh, if the J is the Q, they certainly do.

In short, on 31 you want to be in 6 because the Quack is a Queen, but on 32 you want to stay out of 7 because the Quack is a Jack. 

For the youngsters out there, I borrowed the topic title from the theme song for the old Maverick tv show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfz5tv_dfLA

A very exciting finish, with the USA2 team winning 278-276. I think we can call that close!

A truly impressive match all around, a pleasure to watch.

[kenberg]

In the Transnationals Robson-Gold got to the unbeatable 7 Moysian on bd 32.
http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?bbo=y&linurl=http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/vugraph_linfetch.php?id=53047

These guys are better than I am!

[OliverC]

Amazing hand. Funnily enough, just been discussing this exact hand in the OCP Forum. OCP easily gets to 7 , knowing it's the right contract:

EW Game, Dealer West

West                   East
   AJ43                   KQ1082 
   A2                      9 
   KQJ9                  A76 
   J95                     AK87

OCP Bidding
1                        1NT(Spades)
2    (Gamma)       3    ( HHxxx or HHHxx)
3   (Control Ask)  4   (6 Controls)
5   (Epsilon)        5   (None or 1st & 2nd Rnd Control of Clubs)
5    (Epsilon)       6   (2nd round Control of Hearts, has to be a Shortage)
6   (Epsilon)       7   (1st Rnd Control of Diamonds, no 2nd or 3rd [Axx(x) or a void])
PASS

Since East must have a Club control of some sort, 5   has to be 1st and 2nd round control, without 3rd (ie: AKx(x). Now it's clear to West that the King of Hearts is missing. The thing here is knowing that the Heart ruff in the East hand doesn't gain you anything, because it's a ruff in the hand with longer trumps

In fact the 6 Ask is almost superfluous and probably dangerous, in that if East has Ax, their response to 6 will be 7 . At the table I would probably just bid 7 over 6 , a jump-shift in a new suit being 100% "to play" in that kind of sequence. I would take the risk of East having Ax, because 7 will still be making if the Diamonds are 4-3, echoing a famous Grand Slam on a 4-2 fit bid by the Blue Team many moons ago (and yes, they bid it knowing it was the only making Grand Slam in a fairly similar situation).

If you Ask with 6 and Partner does bid 7 , then you have to play in 7 , knowing East has AKxxx and have to hope that either the Queen is doubleton, or you can pin the doubleton 10 in the South hand or North has Q10x and you can judge which of those three applies   -   not ideal .


What is more surprising, perhaps, is the number of World Class pairs who bid to 7 on those cards and inevitably went -1 when South has Qxx

[OliverC]

The penultimate hand was disappointing in that hardly anyone got to the unbreakable small slam, which I found astonishing. Once again, OCP breezes into this slam:


NS Game, Dealer South

West               East
A                  K972
AJ10732        K954
Q83              K94
K85              AJ


OCP Bidding
West                  East
1                     1NT(Forcing)
2                     2 (Asking in Hearts)
3 ( Hxxxxx)   3 (Asking about Controls)
4 (5 Controls)   4 (asking about Spade Controls)
4NT(No or 1+2)   5 (Asking about Controls)
5 (3rd)             6 (Knows Spades are the stiff Ace)

East also knows that West cannot have Qxxx because if they did they would bid 2 over 1NT no matter how many Hearts they had. The only danger is an opening lead through the King when West has xx rather than Qx or Qxx (which is possible). East knows West has the Club King here, so they don't have to have the Diamond Queen for their opening bid.

Given the state of the match, I was astonished that the French EW never even looked like considering the possibility of a slam. At least Moss and Grue got to the 5-level and Moss only wimped out when Grue, somewhat weirdly, denied a Diamond Control.

[kenberg]

I was watching board 31 and, since Grue/Moss play Precision I figured they might well have the tools to do it.
So what happened?
Well, I don't know Precision but I took one of the comments as a uint.
Fairly far into the auction, we see the comment:

lmilne: Grue hasn't shown anything yet, just asking Moss what's up

So I gather from the comment that Grue asks, Moss tells, then Grue decides.  If that is so, then Grue knows he has the   K and he decides, but to decide 6   he has to know that Moss has the Q.
I don't know if I have  correctly identified the problem, but it seems possible. I imagine we will hear a lot about this one. I think my explanation is possiible, but I confess I am guessing.

On 32, I think the 7 could be found by standard methods, providing these standard methods are being used by someone of the caliber of Robson-Gold. Well, sure it can be, because it was!
Playing with my clone, the auction would begin as theirs did
1NT - 2
3 - 4

Assuming we have the tools to find out about the top honors, meaning aces and kings,, we now count tricks: 5 spades, 1 heart, 4 diamonds, 2 clubs. That's 12 tricks. But wait. Ruffing a heart with a spade in the long spade hand will not produce trick 13, ruffing a heart with a diamond in the hand with three diamonds will. Voila.  So Robson suggests 7D might work, Gold looks at his stiff heart and says yep.

Again I don't know enough about their methods to know how certain they were that 13 tricks were there, but if they want to try for 13 this is surely the way to do it when playing standard methods. If you are Moss-Gold. My clone and I  would not be there.

This was one terrific BB and a remarkable last 2 boards. I expect to see these boards discussed in depth for a long time.

[OliverC]

I was also watching the hand and despite that comment couldn't be entirely sure whether Moss/Grue were using Asking Bids or not, because the writer hadn't appended any explanations to any of the other bids and so clearly wasn't 100% sure what they were playing.


The thing is, he never ASKED about the Diamonds if it was an asking sequence, so from his viewpoint Partner might have had Qxx, Qx, xx, xxx. In the OCP sequence I know Partner has 3rd round control of the suit, so there is a good chance he has Qx or Qxx in Diamonds rather than exactly xx. Even when he does have exactly xx, the Ace might be inside or they might not even lead Diamonds, in which case I know that the second losing Diamond is going away on the King first chance I get. Those are good enough odds for me.

[kenberg]

I got a kick out of the anti-symmetry of the last two boards,  where 6 on 31 is good because the Quack is a Queen and 7 on 32 is nearly hopeless because the Quack is a Jack. The 6 , as you note, would  not be hopeless even had the Quack been a Jack, or a deuce for that matter, but I can only guess at why Grue decided  the risk wasn't worth it.  They has started the last session ahead, their decisions had gone well. Possibly he felt, correctly as it turned out,  that the French were not likely to bid 6 and so he opted for not risking it. 

I imagine it will be discussed further.  On Bridge Winners there is a congratulations thread, fun to read, where Grue and Moss thank people for their kind words. Someone asked about board 31 but so far no explanation.  A different time and place maybe.

I watch the BB, and other vugraph shows, because I enjoy doing so. That's enough of a reason.  But I do feel that a person can learn a lot doing so. Of course being retired provides me with the time, but even with limited tine it beats watching some dumb tv show. The commentary was very good. Thanks to BBO  and to everyone involved.

PS On board 19 of the same set of boards, we see Moss underleading his A against a 4 contract.  With KT9 in dummy and a stiff J in his hand, declarer lay low from the board, and Grue took his Q. I little excitement is good for us. As mentioned, the set was going well for Grue-Moss.