NT Technique

[OliverC]

I sat through this hand as Dummy (mostly holding my head in my hands, truth be told, and preparing to "type fiercely"), but it's a very illustrative hand on how you should and shouldn't play NT hands: The exact bidding sequence doesn't really matter. As it happened Eszter and I were playing OCP and we ended up in 3NT by North (Eszter) in a fairly lengthy unopposed sequence in which I had shown a balanced positive to her 1 Opening. She had "asked" about both red suits and then signed off in 3NT over my negative responses to those.

Love All, Dealer West

South (Dummy)
  J32
  53
  J92
  AQ1072

North
  K
  AKQ92
  AK643
  94

East leads the 5 . How do you view your prospects?

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Ughhh! Doesn't look terribly promising, but things improve significantly when you play low from Dummy and West plays the Queen of Spades, which allows you fairly confidently to place the Ace of Spades with East. You win with the King, perforce. How do you proceed?

I think the standout play is either a small Diamond towards the Jack (or low from both hands), or a top Diamond and then a Diamond towards the Jack. That probably gives 4 Diamond tricks, 3 Hearts, the King of Spades and Ace of Clubs is 9 tricks, so any 3-2 Diamond split or Q10xx with East or even Qxxx with West will do the trick.. Assuming EW take a Diamond trick and clear the Spades, you will have made your 9 tricks before you even start on the Clubs and so will even have the option of the Club finesse for an additional overtrick at the very end.

Another option (not nearly as good as the above, however, because you developing only 1 trick rather than 2), is to duck a Heart at trick 2, which is fine for 9 tricks as long as the Hearts are no worse than 4-2 and East does indeed have the Ace of Spades.

Eszter didn't quite follow either of those plans . At trick 2 she finessed the Q , which won. Now she led the Jack of Diamonds. West covered with the Queen and she won with her King. Now another Club to  East's Jack and Dummy's Ace and a second Diamond to West's 8 and her Ace. Now she played AKQ , (Dummy shed a Club and West a Spade ont the 3rd trick). 8 tricks so far, which is fine, but she used up all of her winners in both hands without establishing her all-important 9th trick. Now she exited with a Diamond to Dummy's 9 and West's 10. Eszter made her 9 tricks. West played a Club to East's King. East cashed their good Heart but then had to  play away from their A10 toi give Dummy the final trick.

The thing about this hand is that, especially in No Trumps, you generally need to establish tricks before you start cashing them. The probability of the Club finesse winning is exactly 50%. The probability of Diamonds being 3-2 is nearly 68%. If you add on the 4-1 scenarios Where East has any 4-card holding with the Queen or the singleton 10 you're up to nearly 80%. If the Club finesse loses, you are definitely going off whatever the position is elsewhere. Moreover the "chinese finesse" of leading the Jack of Diamonds at trick 3 will only win against complete novice opposition. Any West with Qx or Q10(8)x will always cover. Leading small towards J92 even potentially brings in 4 tricks when East has the singleton 7 or 8 if the aforementioned Club finesse is working, because you can run the 9 next time, picking up Q1085 in the West hand.

[kenberg]

We often speak of counting. Imo, counting tricks is often the easiest and the most useful. This is a case in point. After the opening lead, for which we sacrifice three virgins to the bridge gods, we reason If the Q is on my left I see at least 9 tricks.  If are 3-2 I see at least 9 tricks.  Otoh, if i take the finesse and it wins, that will be 1 trick already taken, 3 sure tricks, 2 sure tricks, 2 tricks, that's 8.

Apparently Willie Sutton never really said that he robs banks because "that's where the money is" but in this case diamonds are where the tricks are.  How should we play ? Good question, but the important thing is that we play them.  If are 3-2 it doesn't much matter. If rho has QTxx it gets a little tricky. If we start small to the J, or maybe small to the 9, rho will win and cannot return the suit w/o giving you a trick. Or can he? If he wins and returns a small are you going to play small? Would he do that? Well, he is not going to lead a into dummy. He might or might not return a giving you a trick. How about a ? Maybe, maybe not. I think I might play A and another . If  all follow to the first and  lho follows to the second I will have 9 tricks regardless of where anything is.

We are assuming the A is to declarer's left. This is likely from the play of the Q at T1, just on general principles, and since the opening lead was the 5, suggesting strength and length to the left, this seems certain.  So are stopped, and they cannot set them up w/o giving us a

Exactly how to play is not clear to me, the main thing, as you say, is to play them. Unless the layout is quite unlucky, playing on gives me an immediate 9 tricks. And, of worse comes to worse and somewhere down the road I find that I need to take the finesse for my 9th trick, then I'll take it.

Here is what I see as important. Perfection is hard to achieve. Placing every card is often very tough. But counting to 9 is not so tough. If the Q is on the left there are 9 tricks. If the are 3-2 there are 9 tricks. Surely any line other than playing on needs a good argument to convince us that we  should pursue that line instead of going after .

We will not always be able to see where our tricks will be coming from. But often we can, if we just stop to think about it.

I will illustrate with a hand I played yesterday:

http://tinyurl.com/yb9rheuj

A straightforward auction, the kind I like.  W led a small trump. I need 12 tricks, where are they? I have 3 tricks, 5 , 1 , 2 . That's 11. I need 12.

What's the best way? I don't know. Here is what I did. K then A of trump, everyone following, top two , ruff a .  I am sure I had better options, but this was adequate. When will it work? It will  work if are 3-3. It will work if are 4-2 and the 2 card holding is on my left since I will score my ruff now if she discards, later if she ruffs. It will work if the 2 card holding is on my right, providing he also started  with only two hearts. If my is over ruffed I am far from dead. If are 3-3 the long will be my 12th trick. Even if are not splitting, there is a  chance the opponents may have trouble. Lho is then known to have started with four . If she also has four I have her as long as I play my cards in the right order (cash the A and run trumps).

Alternate line: Cash two high in hand planning to ruff a high on the board. I was worried about trumps being 4-1 but I think this was misguided. If they are 4-1 then I quickly I find out about it and then I still have various back-up plans.

The point here is not that my line of play was brilliant, it wasn't. The point is that I saw that I had 11 tricks and then set out on a plausible, probably not optimal,  plan to get a 12th.

Back to the hand of this thread. If behave at all nicely, you have 9 tricks. If the finesse works, you still do not have 9 tricks. And if are a disappointment, the finesse is still there. You see a plausible line for 9, you go for it. It might not always work, but surely it's a fine shot. You start by counting to 9.

A nice hand.

[OliverC]

The situation you really have to cater for here is Qxxx on your left. Realistically, you're not going to catch Qxxx on your right unless LHO has the singleton 10. Losing the first trick to the Queen on your right and then running the 9 on the second round is a pretty deep position to take with no prior indications as to the probable distribution. Moreover, the Club finesse has to be right for that to work, as you need two entries to dummy to finesse twice on the 2nd and 3rd rounds of the suit.