How to come unstuck!!!! (Nearly)

[OliverC]

Basic Rules for Declarer play:
(1) COUNT your tricks
(2) Count your immediate Losers
(3) Make a Plan
(4) Keep re-assessing (1), (2) and (3) above in light of the play

Partner very nearly came unstuck on this very simple hand because she didn't do any of the above

You are in 4 after LHO has overcalled Diamonds (the bidding doesn't matter)

North
  K93
  KQ95
  106
  AKJ6

South
  AQJ1052
  J2
  82
  852

West leads the 7

How do you plan the play?
.
.
.
(1) Count your tricks: 6 Spades, 2 Clubs and 2 Hearts
(2) Count your losers: Ace of Hearts and Two Diamond tricks
(3) Plan: Draw trumps and lead the Jack of Hearts to establish 2 Heart tricks for a Club discard before your other Club Honour is knocked out.

You win with the King in Dummy and the Queen of Clubs appears on your right.

(4) Re-assess: No urgency about the Hearts now since your potential Club loser has just disappeared,  and you still have 3 top losers, but drawing all of the opposing trumps has become potentially more urgent. The only thing that can possibly disturb this ice-cold contract is a ruff of some sort if you don't draw all of the outstanding trumps immediately. Our plan hasn't significantly changed, however.

So lead the King of Spades and continue Spades for up to 4 tricks as required (in practice East shows out on the first round, so you need 4 rounds of trumps. Clearly something a little weird is going on because it's almost impossible for the Q at trick 1 to be a true card unless the 2 overcall was a psyche of some kind (West can hardly have 4 Spades, 5 Diamonds and 5 Clubs).

At the Table Partner took three rounds of Spades ending with the King in Dummy (East discards the 10 and 10 ) and now led a Heart towards the Jack, potentially opening herself up to the very thing that can potentially disturb this contract (a Heart ruff), because regardless of the Club position, if West has 4 Spades and 5+ Diamonds and by the look of it 4 Clubs, East is marked with all of the Hearts and West with a void. In practice West won the J with the Ace and returned ... another Heart.

Partner was still not paying any attention to the cards Opps were playing, because the KQ9 in Dummy are now all good, so all of our Diamond losers in hand can go on them. Only trouble is that we're still in Dummy so Partner sensibly ruffed the 9 high and drew the outstanding trump (Big sigh of relief from across the table LOL). Now she crossed to to the Ace of Clubs (by this point East has discarded two Clubs on Spade tricks), led the K and discarded ... a Club and then the 10 (Clearly she hadn't paid attention at trick 1 ). When she led the 10 all of Dummy's Clubs were good and she could have come out with 11 tricks for an extra IMP.

Amazingly 4 making was still worth 4½ IMPs because several Pairs were somehow managing to go off in this simplest of contracts, and one pair had even allowed 5 X by their EW Opps to make. I still cannot quite believe how they managed to accomplish that defensive feat after seeing the play to the first trick... LOL

[kenberg]

What do we do with a drunken sailor
What do we do with a drunken sailor

It's tough to  reconcile the opponents  bidding and play without bringing in alcohol.

But never mind. When the opening club lead is not ruffed we claim ten tricks and go on to the next hand.  Surely after you draw trump and lead the J they will take the A and cash as many diamonds as they can. What else? So ten tricks, no more, no less, NEXT.

But then again!  There are many ways to play hands, some very subtle. But here would be a good start, basically using your rules 1 and 2: See if there is an obvious source of ten tricks, and then, if there is no danger of them taking four first, play it that way. Some hands, actually quite a few hands, will be more subtle. But first counting up ten tricks, or the lack of them, must be a decent place to start. If the hand is too complex for a person to be able to do that, so be it. This one isn't.

[OliverC]

You're right, Ken. The East West hands were as follows:

West              East
  xxxx                -
  Ax                  10xxxx
  AQ10xxx          KJx
  x                    Q1098x

The Club Queen at trick 1 was particularly incomprehensible given that they could see the AKJx in Dummy (Maybe they were confused about what trumps were and were hoping to ruff a Spade switch LOL). But really it doesn't make any difference to Opps trick-taking potential or to our plan, which is always to draw the opposing trumps in as many rounds as it takes ending in our hand, lead the Jack of Hearts, and claim the rest as soon as we regain the lead after someone takes the Ace of Hearts.

Bridge can be a complicated game, no question, but often you can reduce it to very simple thought processes: Even if you start with the A from hand, as soon as East shows out on the first round of Spades you should clock that your next step should be a small Spade to the King because it will take four rounds of Spades to draw all their trumps (which is your undefeatable plan for 10 tricks).

[kenberg]

I was trying to think of how that Q could be right. It can't, really, but here are a couple of my musings. are 6-3 and maybe E, holding 3, allows that they might be 5-3, giving declarer 3.  In this case, declarer would not be able to draw trump and lead a because then the opponents would cash 3 .   So naturally declarer would try to establish the before  drawing trump.  Voila, maybe the Q will scare him!

That's the best I could come up with  but it's nuts. To start with, pitching a trick  to scare an opponent  is seldom cost effective. I suppose we could create a hand where it is, but not easily. But more to the point, as the cards lie, all he has to do is play a small at T1. Then, in this hypothetical situation where W has 5 and S has 3, if declarer then leads a heart before drawing trump W rises, plays the A and a small ,  E is in and gives his partner a ruff.

So I just don't get it.  If the Q  for some reason  had been the right play, E would have  become famous for finding it.

Maybe the idea was to do something  bizarre to distract declarer. Declarer gets so involved in trying to figure what's up in that he forgets to count his ten sure tricks. Maybe it worked!

OK, now about 5 making.  Maybe this?
 AK of , ruffed at T2.   Ruff a in dummy. Cash the Q throwing a .  to A. Etc. Our tricks are three ruffs in dummy, the Q , the A and six tricks in hand.  That's 11, and after the AK of the defense can do nothing. After the third ruff, declarer leads a a third from the board, S needs to put up hid highest but W can cover it and still draw trump without ;loss. I wouldn't call it a great defense but I can imagine it happening.

[OliverC]

Okay but who in their right mind, seeing Q1098x of a suit in Dummy, continues with the King when Declarer played the 7 and Partner the 2, especially when the KJx of trumps is in Dummy  and you have absolutely no reason to expect Partner has a trump trick and you are holding KQxx in Dummy's other long suit, so there's absolutely nowhere that Declarer can safely park any putative Club loser. Moreover as soon as Dummy goes down it must be clear that Dummy ruffing our Spade losers is the biggest threat to the defence so a trump at trick 2 (even if you didn't think of it at trick 1) is de rigeur.

[kenberg]

Beats me. I was trying  to figure out how 5 X could possibly make. Probably some implausible plays will be required. But 5 seems like a reasonable sac anyway.  The auctions can vary, and it depends on who is the dealer.  If N starts with 1NT I suppose S transfers at the four level. 5 over that would be pretty daring. If S is the dealer then he starts with 2 , probably W comes in with 3 and N bids 4 .  Now I can imagine E bidding 5 . On this auction it seems to me that a trump a T1 makes sense. North can trust S for some help in , and N controls and , so it's time to start cutting down on ruffs. This should hold declarer to 9 tricks.  On the  A and a trump shift I think declarer can bring in 10 tricks. Win on the board, lead the Q, throwing the . If N returns another , win on the board, throwing a , establishing two tricks in ..  Declarer might not play it this way, and for that matter the defense has a counter move, but I think it is fairly logical.  At any rate, the defense starting with a trump seems right.

Anyway, I was just speculating. 5 X making is indeed inexplicable on any logical defense. I have no idea what actually happened.

And yes, I am wandering off from the basic point. 4 is a laydown against any shape, unless they can take two , the , and a ruff somewhere before S gets the lead. After T1, S can claim making 4.


PS! I couldn't stand it so I just now looked it up. Indeed the defense to 5 X began with the AK of and then the play went as I suggested. I did make the guess without peeking.  I completely agree it is not a logical defense. But how else could 5 X make?  Well, I suppose that there are other ways!
Looking closely, I see that even after this beginning 5 can be beaten.

Dummy's diamonds are KJ9, After the three ruffs, they are gone.
Declarer holds AQ7543

After the third ruff in dummy, declarer led a heart. This is the third heart led, so N is out. He can, and should, ruff with the 8 from his 82. This forces declarer to over ruff with the Q. Now S, who holds T6, gets his T. The earlier posts once had the T in declarer's hand, once had it in the S hand, I didn't bother to check which was right. But the play of the 8 on the heart is worth noting. The logic is that it can't hurt and might help. In this case, it does. Since N is also out of clubs by the time of the third ruff on the board, trying to get back to hand in clubs won't work either.

I guess the short view is that there were more than a few errors on this hand. I think I will now move on to a couple of my own.


 

[OliverC]

LOL. When I looked at the traveller, that was the absolute first hand I looked at, because I was aghast at the possibility of 5 (which is a decent sac, as you said) being allowed to actually make. Given my hand (I was North), the 10 would have hit the table less than a nanosecond after the bidding finished . I can't stop Declarer from ruffing two Spades, but they're still inevitably -2.

[kenberg]

Indeed. And just speaking for me, I would have opened the E hand 1 . If partner has spades, I will be happy to raise spades. If partner does not have spades, I don't mind rebidding my diamonds. If the auction gets competitive, I have shown a suit. It's a ten count, but AQxxxx, an outside A, and a stiff is good enough for me.

[onoway]

whenever I see a totally incomprehensible bid or play I assume it was a misclick and some poor schmuck is mentally berating themselves and vowing to take up knitting.

[kenberg]

Indeed.I had such a hand against you the other day. I am in 3NT and after you led a club, perfectly reasonable from a six card club suit, I had 9 tricks. I somehow did not take them.  It wasn't a misclick, it was simply a temporary, or I hope temporary,  excursion into the absurd.
I would have led the Q from your hand instead of the A, but no matter, any club lead and I have 9 tricks. If I take them.

At all but the highest levels, and sometimes even there,  the fate of a hand is more likely to turn on how carefully the hand is played rather than on any arcane play or bid. I enjoy discussing the subtleties, they are interesting to me and I think they are useful, but staying focused is really where the action is.