I played a few of the Wacko hands yesterday. As I think I have said before, one feature that I really like is that is that many of the hands present problems that have no clear cut right approach.

Here is  a hand, we are non-vul, our opps vul,  I am dealer, I hold a 2=3= 2=6 shape with  (as near as I can recall)

Kx
xxx (maybe 9xx)
9x (the 9 turns out to be useful)
AKxxxx

So, do I open? I passed, much to the disagreement of others. If you put a gun to my head and tell me I must open, I open 1 not 3 .

This led to a very chancy but good result. The auction went as follows:

Pass - 1 - Pass - 2 (weak jump shift)
Pass - 3 -   X  -  Pass
?
Ouch. If I had opened 1 ,  if they then reached 3 (as they would),  and if then my partner doubled, then surely I must pull. Partner, because of my opening, would be  expecting help in setting this.  Actually, had I opened 1 I doubt partner would have doubled 3 . I expect we would end in 5 off 1. Here is partner's hand (again as best I recall)

x
KQxx
KQJ8
QJxx

A 14 count, a stiff in their suit, support for my suit, and no doubt he will have figured me for long and strong clubs. Why? Well, it will begin 1 - X - 1 -  some number of . Our vul opponents will be bidding up their spades (they have ten of them) I will not be supporting partner's hearts, and I did open the bidding. With 4-4 in the minos I would have opened 1 so surely for my 1 ~!C opening I have 5 at least. And some values. Where are those values? In clubs it would seem.

So we would end in 5 off 1 when they cash their aces.

With my initial pass, I can reason that I never said I had any values at all, partner is doubling, for take-out but I should think with good values,  in a live auction, not the pass out seat. My values might well be enough, when added to his, to beat this. And so it was.

I started with the K, dummy came down as 4=4=4=1, I switched to the 9. Dummy has  ATxx in . Terrific. Whether he plays the A, or the T, or ducks, we are establishing some tricks.

Dummy has the A so declarer can pick up my K but that's only if he can get to his hand. He can't. He tries the A and another , I take my K and lead another . Partner cashes the KQ, we now have 4 tricks, he plays another riffed, and now pard just waits to collect his trick. Declarer is 6=2=3=2. there is nothing for him to do as near as I can see.

Yes we can make 4 , but if I open this hand 1 it is going to be very hard to stop in 4 . Basically, I think we can't.


I have no quarrel with a  opening.  I think opening it 3 carries a high risk of missing a game (when the other cards are laid out differently) but different players will see this differently. As I said, I like the Wacko hands because there is room for a difference of views.

Note that we have 10 clubs, they have 10 spades. LOTT claims that there should be 20 total tricks. We can easily take exactly 10 in , I don't see how the opponents could have made 3 ,  I think they have only 8 tricks coming. LOTT is often off by a trick, here it is off by 2 tricks.  LOTT can be a useful guide, but I would not want my life to depend on its accuracy. I am more than willing to admit that passing that X was risky.

The hands were interesting, and fun. I made some errors. What else is new?


We could discuss some of the others.

Dare hand today, board 7.

Thought number 1: I have to start the clubs by playing a spot to the A in case all the clubs are on my right.

Thought number 2: Even if I bring in the clubs I need two diamond tricks.

Thought number 3: If  Rho holds at least 1 club  and if my Rho holds at least on of the diamond honors then all I have to do is play the hand correctly. So this is about a 75% make.

https://tinyurl.com/y8lkxre6

And thought number 4: The way to get the most benefit from these hands is to go over them carefully later and find your errors. Yes it always is frustrating to see how easy it should have been but so be it.

I don't think I have ever discussed this. After 1 - Pass - Pass most people play 1NT as a balanced hand of modest strength, 11-15 being a common range. So it's different from the immediate 1NT directly over 1 . But how about 2 -Pass-Pass-2NT? It seems right to make this pretty strong. After all, you do need 8 tricks and while the 2 shows less strength than a 1 opening, the Rho's pass of 2 could be on pretty decent strength.

Here is the hand that prompted this thinking. I'll start with my hand (second position, 2 opened on my right):

T6
A43
T72
JT852

Ok, over 2 on my right I chose to Pass. Then a Pass on my left and a double by partner. Pass on my right. Yuk.
Not for the first time I was not really sure of our agreements. If 2NT would be a Lebensohl relay to 3 I could do that and then pass, but were we playing Leb here? I decided to bid 3 and hope for the best. Partner now bid 3NT. Ok, he has to play it, not me.

T6
A43
T72
JT852

AJ42
QT8
AK86
A6

The story has a happy ending. A lead would beat 3NT but W, holding 975, somehow failed to find such an obvious () lead.

I'm thinking that after 2 - Pass - Pass, the S hand could bid 2NT. I would pass and we would not get that nice +400, but it seems right.

Suppose we were playing Leb and suppose then that over partner's X I bid a Leb 2NT intending to pass the 3 . The problem is that partner is not going to be happy bidding 3   because (a) he has only Ax in and (b) the hand probably belongs in NT. Worse, if he decides that he should override the relay and raise 2NT to 3NT I will be playing it from the N hand a the opening lead will be a . Not good.

So I am thinking that the range for 2NT after 2 - Pass - Pass should be high enough to include this hand.


The play was interesting, here are all four hands:

                      T6
                      A43
                      T72
                      JT852

KQ8753                        9
975                              KJ62
Q95                              J43
K                                  Q9743

                    AJ42
                    QT8
                    AK86
                    A6

The opening lead was the K (W does not know that declarer holds AJxx and dummy has the T), taken by the A, the A is led, dropping the Q, and another to the J with W pitching a small . E wins with  the Q and leads what? He no longer has a , a would go into dummy's T8, and a is not going to succeed either. So a , ducked, W wins the Q and gets out with a . Declarer wins and leads a . taken by W, so the J is now good. E is out of and  throws a on this trick.

Declarer will now be getting two tricks, one trick, three tricks and two tricks. Well, that's 8. If W leads a we are up to 9, but W gets out with his third . Now what?

It's an interesting squeeze position. Declarer cashes his J and his last . Nine tricks have no been played and everyone must come down to four cars . E has to save two else the T will drop the 9, promoting the 8. So he comes down to KJ. But now a to the ! and another ! puts E on lead holding only the 97, with T8 on the board.

9 tricks. Not a contract anyone wants to be in.

I think 2 -Pass - Pass - 2NT - all pass is a reasonable auction, but I am not complaining about the result.

 This is a revised  version of some quick comments I made yesterday.

On Wednesday there was an open discussion on squeezes. This hand came up. The lead was the K and the squeeze works, but the question was raised about what happens on other leads.

Contract is 6 .

Let's first look at the hand with the lead (a very likely lead!)
Q52
A82
Q864
KQ2


A
J74
AKJ975
A74

Opening lead, the K. We assume W also has the Q for this play.
We count 1+1+6+3=11  obvious tricks on top, we need a 12th.
If W holds the Q (highly likely) and the K we can make this by ducking at T1, unless (most unlikely) the defense can get an immediate ruff at T2. So we duck.

A continuation gives us a trick, so he leads something else. We take it, we draw trump, we cash the black winners, and then we run the rest of the .


After 10 tricks the position is
Q
A8





J7
5


We are assuming W was dealt the K so, of course,  he still has it. So he now has only two .

We now play the last , aka the squeeze card.

W plays what? If he plays the K we can see what to do.  So he plays a , leaving him with only 1. He has to hope his partner has the J but alas for him, we have it.  We pitch the Q from the board, a to the A drops the last on the left, the J is good.

We pause to note that the duck at T1 served two purposes. It rectified the count (12 more tricks to be played and we have 12-1=11 winners) and, very important, it preserves the A as an entry to the board. The Q is to be a threat, but if there is no entry it is a toothless threat.

Ok, that takes care of the hand as presented. The question was asked whether the hand could be made on other leads. Well, Gib says yes so, in a way, that answers the question. Those bots are clever.  But how? I first worked out how on a club or diamond lead and wrote that up, but now I also see how to do it on a spade lead. And it can all be done the same way.  So: Assume that the lead is something other than a . No matter what it is we can cash five rounds of , throwing the 2 on the 5th , then the A, and then three rounds of ending on the board. So we are all down to four cards:

Q5
A8





J74
5


The lead is on the board. Let us suppose we somehow know which four cards W has held onto. If his only is the K, we ruff a small dropping his K and go back to the board on and take the Q. But if he has kept the Kx, then he must have only two . Fine. Play A and then the 9 from the board and the 7 from hand. We are now left with a trump and the good J.

You might well ask: How can we tell which to do and the answer is we can't. But, perhaps, we guess right. Better than nothing.

Much better if we get the lead of the K. We duck and then we run the squeeze. No ambiguity. It might not work, it won't work if the K is with E, but there is no doubt about what we should try. In the more complicated case where the lead is a non- , we just have to do our best. At the end, even if it has worked, we have to guess in which way it worked. Life is like that sometimes.

I was going over this in my head while drinking my morning coffee and I realized that this squeeze is not positional. That is, as long as one opponent, either one,  has all three of the KQ and the K it will work. This makes it at least a little more likely that it could show up in a real situation. As the cards actually lay, probably most defenders would start with the K at T1 holding KQx and this was what happened. But on another day, with Rho holding AK and K, Lho might well hold JT9x and start with the J.  Now this squeeze earns its keep.
 




 

Some days nothing goes right. But there is always a bright side. I'll give you my hand, tell you what happened, and then show all four hands.

My hand, everyone vul, imps, playing with and against bots:

K32
A97
AK952
Q5

Looks like a 1NT opener to me, so I opened 1NT.  The uncontested auction:
1NT - 3 (alerted as a splinter, 4-4 in the majors and 4 or maybe 5 clubs.
3NT - 6NT.

The opening lead is the 4.

Both hands:

AQT4
KQT5
J
AT64

K32
A97
AK952
Q5

I suppose pard has his bid but this is a truly lousy contract. If, a big if, I can bring in both majors then that gets me to 11 tricks. Ok, I assume both majors come in. Now what? Maybe the K is on my right. If the K is on my left, maybe the !c j is also on my left. So, if the majors come in then all I need is some decent luck in to bring this in. Well, both of the majors are 3-3 but the K is on my left, the J is on my right, off 1. Gob says I can make it. Gib is right, he always is, but it took me a while to see it. That's the puzzle I give you, double dummy, same as Gib. So: Are you smarter than a robot?

                        AQT4
                        KQT5
                        J
                        AT64
 
765                                    J98
542                                    J83
T864                                  Q73
K98                                    J732


                      K32
                      A97
                      AK952
                      Q5

After : 4 - J - Q  you have to make a plan. It seems to me that hoping for the majors to come in and then hoping for a decent break in clubs is a reasonable line when only the NS cards are seen. But now, like Gib, it's double dummy. How to do it?
Enjoy!

I enjoy hands where things do not really go as they should. It suits my view of life.  Here is an example from yesterday.

Matchpoints, nobody vul, the deal is on your left, he opens 1 , partner overcalls 1 , rho bids 2 . You hold:

K432
KQ4
87
K964

Ok, too strong for a preempt but the opponents seem to have all the values so I stretch, or maybe it's an anti-stretch, and bid 3 . Partner doesn't have much, no surprise, and 3 could be set 2 tricks but the opponents go on:

1 - 1 - 2 = 3
Pass - Pass - X - Pass
4   - Pass - 4 - Pass
5 All Pass

I am on lead and I choose a . As the cards lie, this holds them to 11 tricks, or so it would seem. On any other lead they can take 12 tricks. As the hand was played, it was down 1.

So: 3 could have been doubled and down 2 for -300, 5 could make for -500, we get +50, it scores 31%. The top score our way is 3NT our way, it could have been set 2 but made. Another good score in our direction is 3NT played their way, off a surprising 4.

Yes, this was played against the bots, but 5 is not all that crazy a contract since it could have been made.


                          QJT65
                          3
                          QJT
                          J

A9                                           87
3                                             AT986
9543                                        AK62
AQT832                                   75


                        K432                                       
                      KQ4                                         
                      87                                           
                      K964                                       

                                                                   
Apparently declarer decoded that my 3 was week enough so that he should play my partner for the K and he led a to the 8 (Tthe T seems better if he doesn't want to play the Q). Now we are beating this.

Fwiw, Lott says the trick total should be 9+8=17, it really is 7+11=18.


Cards do not always behave as they should. I invite other examples. I am not sure there is anything great to be learned, but I find these hands to be fun.

https://www.bridgeworld.com/indexphp.php?page=/pages/msc/mastersolversmainpage.html

Good morning

This is not from a teaching session but I plan on being pedantic so I thought I would put it here. I will give two hands from yesterday with the bots, one ending well, the other not, both having some interesting features.

hand 1:

Matchpoints, nobody vul, the deal is on your left, it starts with  Pass - 1 - Pass. You hold

AJ842
A3
JT86
Q3.

Simple enough so far, you bid 1 . The opponents stay out of this, partner re-bids 1NT. You are playing New Minor Forcing and you bid 2 , partner responds 2 .

The uncontested auction so far:
1   - 1
1 NT - 2
2

This is our first problem, not everyone agrees about what 2 shows. Surely it shows four hearts, but does it deny three spades?
My preference is that it does not deny three spades and the bots play it that way as well.

I bid a passable but invitational 2 . It pretty much shows just this hand. Partner bids a passable  2NT.

1 -  1
1 NT - 2
2 - 2
2NT

The situation is pretty clear. Partner hold two spades (unless he rebid 1NT on a stiff), he holds four hearts, he holds an opening count, he knows I have enough to try for game with my NMF call, he is leaving the final contract up to me.   
So?
Well, I passed.  The hands don't seem to be fitting all that well. It's true I would have bid the same way if the Q had been the J but that doesn't seem like enough to bid 3NT, so I passed.

The good news is that on a heart lead they can hold me to 8 tricks. The bad news is that at most tables 3NT was bid and made. Actually, the opening lead was a spade. the hands were

KQ
9872
Q952
AJ9

AJ842
A3
JT86
Q3.

The software makes me the declarer with the N cards. It's still not clear where 9 tricks are coming from  I won the spade, cashed another spade, led the 9.  E held the K and, reasonably I think, ducked, the Q won. OK I am now up to 5+1+0+2=8 tricks. So I gave up  a now and still no heart shift.  I ended up taking 10 tricks for a 33 % score.

The pedantic point, besides the fact that what could happen double dummy and what does happen are often very different, is that after the NMF bid it is good to know just what the 2 call does and does not say.  Some play it as denying three spades, some don't.. Also, it is good to know what the 2 over 2   means. As I like to play it, partner, holding three spades and a minimum hand, is free to pass and we play in 2 .


Now for Hand 2.

Matchpoints, everyone  vul, the deal is on your right,  he starts with  Pass .

Q52
Q53
AK73
KJ2

Do I open 1NT? I elected not to. Yes it is a 15 count but it is flat and there are not tens or even nines to help out. So i bid 1 .
This auction is contested.

Pass - 1 - 1 - X
Pass - 1NT - 2 -2


This is getting exciting. The calls are natural, partners  double was negative, and the  2 showed diamonds. Lho's bids showed spades and clubs. Gane seems unlikely, I passed. Plus 130 for 100 %.  You might think that this is because at other tables they were in 3NT going down, but no, that's not it. At other tables my hand was opened 1NT, Lho bid a Cappelletti 2 , passed out.

6
AK764
T854
764

Q52
Q53
AK73
KJ2

It turns out that Lho has 5=2=2=4 shape and E holds the Q  so we could also make 9 tricks in hearts for +140 beating +130, but no one is there.  It's also true, or I think it is, that 2 could be beaten a trick [correction, I believe declarer can always make 2 ]  but no one is in 2 X and anyway usually 2 makes.

The pedantic point is that while a 15 count justifies a 1NT opening it does not require a 1NT opening. It's just not that great a hand.

If you want to think of whether it is or is not possible to beat 2 , here are the hands.


                      6
                      AK764
                      T854
                      764

AKT98                                    J743
J2                                          T98
J2                                          Q96
A985                                      QT3

                      Q52
                    Q53
                    AK73
                    KJ2


Usually it was not beaten.

Reverses often lead to undiscussed situations, here is an example.

Imp scoring, everyone vul, partner is the dealer and opens 1 .  You hold:

A975
KJ
42
QT853

So far so good. You respond 1 and partner bids 2 . Make a plan, Stan.

A bid of 2NT would be Leb, asking partner to rebid 3 . "Asking" is the right word, since if he has an unusual hand he might choose not to bid 3 . But normally he will. Often, but again not always, responder is trying to get out short of game when making this Leb call. So: I could bid 2NT even with this strongish hand but then I would want to be clear about the strength at my next call.
As to bidding 3 , this has not been discussed but it is presumably natural in the sense that it shows clubs, although it seems unlikely it would be a suggestion to play in clubs. Possible, I suppose.
If I had held a five card spade suit I could have rebid 2 over 2 without fear of partner passing so I do not really need 3 as an artificial call to check for a 5-3 spade fit. Of course I don't have five spades, but my point is that I am free to use 3 to show clubs.
We have not discussed a 3NT call over 2 but it is presumably natural. How it would differ from 2NT followed by 3NT has not been discussed.

Reversed lead to undiscussed situations. That's true for just about anyone.

So how are you thinking here? Get out? Game? Slam? What do I do now, and what do I anticipate happening next, if anything? And then what?

To borrow from an old song The story is sad, the ending was bad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgDtAB9riWs