Reading the Hand, Counting, Trump Control!

[OliverC]

Reading the hand correctly is not always possible, especially if there has been no opposition bidding. Where there has been a fair amount of opposition bidding, however, there is rarely much excuse for getting the hand completely wrong. Take this hand (NS Vulnerable, Dealer North):

North
  AQ7
  9543
  AKJ108
  7

South
  5
  AQJ62
  7
  QJ10653

Bidding
North     East     South     West
1         X          1        1
3         No         No         3
No          No         4        No
4         X           All Pass

West leads the 10

How do you plan the play? What do you think the EW distribution is? (Opps are competent, reliable bidders)
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There are loads of way to come to 10 or 11 tricks on this hand. East doubled the initial 1 Opening, so there are very few points left for West. Similarly, West's Spade bids haven't exactly lit a fire under East, so it's likely the Spades are 6-3 rather than 5-4, which means that East's shape is likely to be 3424 or 3415, which gives West 6052 or 6061 shape. Making this assessment is fundamental to how Declarer should approach this contract. Only the Hearts being 4-0 explains the bidding and everything else follows from that.

If you ask, Opps will tell you they play "strong 10s", which makes it highly likely that the initial lead is from KJ10 or K109. In practice, though, it makes no real difference whether you rise with the Ace or insert the Queen as long as you get the rest of the hand right.

Your plan now should be to lead a small Club. East will win the King or Ace and probably return to a Spade (especially if you went up with the Ace at trick 1) or maybe a Heart otherwise. You are now in complete control, however. You can effectively run the Diamonds, forcing East to ruff in front of you (they turn up with Qx) and return to Dummy with Club ruffs. The defence comes only to a Club and a Heart. Effectively you're retaining trump control by using the Diamonds as additional trumps, forcing East to ruff in front of you, thereby creating the scope to take Club ruffs on the way back

If you're not too fussed about overtricks, you can even take a Heart finesse early on, return to Dummy with a top Diamond and take a second finesse before exiting with a Club, and still come to a comfortable 10 tricks.

At the table
Declarer clearly didn't accurately assess the likely EW distribution. They rose with the A at trick 1, cashed AK and then took a Heart finesse and exited with a top Club. East won and returned a Spade forcing Declarer to ruff in hand, and now a Club ruff and another finesse and a Club ruff. Even now, Declarer could have prevailed by leading a top Diamond and discarding a Club whether East ruffs or not because Declarer has already gained 8 tricks (Now East makes 2 Clubs and a Heart, but nothing else), but Declarer overruffed but could only put East back in with a Club, allowing East to draw Declarer's last trump and lead a Spade to Partner's King, a 2-trick difference in the result. Not overruffing leaves Declarer in control because they're now certain to make both of their last trumps.

If you're wondering, I was West on this hand. I was beating myself up as the hand progressed for not bidding 4 . Although it looks like Opps can stop me from ruffing Diamonds, in practice East can never get the lead to fire a trump through my hand, because their only entry if to ruff the 2nd round of Diamonds with their singleton trump and East can only deny me 2 Diamond ruffs at the expense of a natural trump trick, so 4 !SX is probably only 2 or 3 off. I was saved by Declarer's misplay at trick 10!

The EW Hands:
West                 East
  K109843        J62
  -                    K1087
  95432            Q6
  92                  AK84

[kenberg]

I think this works:

Since I am pretty confident of ten tricks I will not worry too much about 11 until the hand develops. We will cater to as many shapes as possible.


T1: Spade A

T2:  Small club. I expect the AK on my right, I expect he will rise.

T3: He leads a small spade. OK, this may mean the Q would have held at T1. I don't care. Ruff low, lead a small club.  In theory, W could have been dealt the  a stiff club and the stiff heart T and then he gets to ruff. That would be too bad. It is also unlikely.  I am confident that W does not hold the heart K, and if he held a stiff club he might have led it, and even if he held the stiff club and did not lead it and holds a stiff heart I am ok unless it is the T.  Everyone follows.

T4: Small heart to the Q. W will not have the K. If W follows with a heart I go to the board in diamonds, lead another heart, picking up the trump, surrender a club and claim 11 tricks. So suppose W shows out on the heart Q, as, here, he does.

T5. Small club. W has no trump, E  still has a high club, they are not ruffing. I ruff on the board. If by any chance clubs were 3-3,  I have now established my clubs so I play a heart to my J, play the heart A and run clubs until E ruffs in. I then claim 11 tricks. So suppose the club ruff does not bring down a high club.

T 6,7 I play the AK of diamonds. E is known to have started with four clubs, four hearts and certainly  not five spades. So at least the A of diamonds will cash. But he might have been 4=4=1=4. And then he might ruff the second D. I overruff.

T8, assuming he ruffed the D and I over rufffed. This means he was 4=4=1=4. I lead a club and ruff it. This establishes my clubs. I have so far played one round of trumps and I have overruffed once, so E has two hearts left. I lead a heart to my A, and then run my clubs until he ruffs in. I claim 11 tricks, losing one club and one trump.



Of course E might refuse to ruff the diamond K. Or he might have begun with 3=4=2=4 shape, which in fact he did.  Assume 3=4=2=4.

No problem. I have 7 tricks (I lost to a high club, that's it) and he still has a third spade and a fourth club. So he follows to the king of diamonds as I toss a club.

T 9, 10 I ruff a spade small  to hand, ruff a Club low to board I now have  9 tricks.

E now holds 3 hearts, but I still have the A. So I make 4.

This line appears to make on any  remotely plausible holding, and may well produce 11. Hearts can be 4-0 or 3-1, , spades can be 5-4 or 6-3, the spade K can be wherever it is, doesn't matter. If W holds the club K instead of the spade K, that might cause problems I have not thought it through.
 

Added: I also need to think about what happens if E rises with the club A at T2 and shifts to a trump. Playing low would be fine as they are, but I think playing the Q is better. It hold, ruff a club, heart to the J, heart A, give up a club, now they lead a spade, you ruff, and run clubs until they ruff again. Seems ok.

[OliverC]

As I said, there are loads of ways to make 10 or 11 tricks here. The point was (1) to accurately assess the likely distribution of the defender's hands in a way that is consistent with the bidding, and (2) to highlight the issue about not overruffing East at trick 10 on that line.


I'm not certain that giving East 12+ hcp with 4414 shape is consistent with the bidding, because I think they would have supported Spades earlier. Similarly it means that West is doing all of this bidding on a 3-count max with 5-6 in Spades and Diamonds (LHO's suit). I strongly feel that West being 6-5 (probably with the K!S given their strong 10 lead) is much more consistent with the bidding


So far as your line is concerned, it (along with a number of others) works fine 

[kenberg]

I should have made it clear that I agree entirely. I often watch hands where really declarer cannot go down but does. And on much simpler hands than this.   I think it was Sheinwold , although no doubt many others, who advised that you need to select a plan and you have to know what it is. As I recall, he was explaining about suit play.  He said something like this: Usually you do one of three things:

Use you trumps in dummy to ruff losers.
Cross ruff the hand
Use trumps in hand to establish a long suit in dummy.

He remarked that too often he sees players do a little of all three, and this often does not work. As I recall, he gave an example hand where any one of these three approaches worked, blending them led to disaster.

More generally, we have to know what we are hoping for. Or trying to guard against.


I have put up a few hands where I have thoroughly misplayed them. I find it useful to review hands. Bridge is complex enough  so that I do not expect to ever be error free, but I think going over hands and asking oneself "Was this bad luck, or bad planning?" is the single best thing a person can do to improve. Sure it is good to know about squeezes and such, but that's mostly for the fun it provides when it comes up Far, far more points are lost /won on the simple hands that were or were not planned out correctly.

[OliverC]

Spot on observation, Ken

[kenberg]

Before moving on to more hands, maybe a pause to talk about bidding, both agreements and choices, is worthwhile.

On the first round:

Had the bidding gone 1 - X -P, I like the agreement that 2 is strong (not forcing but strong) but a double  jump to 3 is preemptive.
Otoh, after 1 - X - XX   I like to play that even 2 is preemptive.
After the actual auction, 1 - X - 1 , I think 2 is still strong, 3 is preemptive, just as if third hand had passed.

That's about agreements. Now for choices. I find a first round 3 very tempting, it depends on vulnerability.  And of course on agreements.

Next: After 1 - X - 1 - 1 ,  I certainly would play 3 as forward going, not preemptive. I have opened, partner has made a constructive call, I bid 2 competitively, but 3 is encouraging.  Given that, I do not understand the pass by S. He would have bid 1 with considerably less, his partner has shown extras, what's not to like? I assume S took 3 as a preempt. That would not be my style.

But S did pass 3 . Now W has a choice.

As W, I would not consider 3 . I have no defense against 4 . Partner did not contest with 3 and so does not have all that much to offer. I would have the pass card on the table in record time expecting them to easily score up 170. As they should.  I am not giving them another shot at bidding their game.

After the 3 and then the 4 , I think E should be wary of that X. It is fair for him to expect a little more from his partner, since W had, in my opinion, a clear pass with his actual hand, but still I would just pass and hope. E might figure that it was not all that clear that they were making 3 (they weren't) and if 4 also goes down this is already a pretty good deal, being rescued from a failing contract EW to a failing contract NS, while if 4 is making then  X only makes it worse.

Of course 4 X went down, so all of this seems wrong. But really 4 should not go down.

We all choose as best we can, but a partnership could use this hand to discuss which calls they view as preemptive and which calls they view as forward going.

It's also interesting to speculate on just how many tricks EW would take in a spade contract. I think that they can be held to 7 tricks but it would not surprise me if they managed to take 8.  I think an immediate preemptive 3 has merit, at least at favorably vulnerability. It might keep them from finding their heart game.  Without the preempt,  if they are willing to stop in 3 , favor letting them.

[OliverC]

The reasons I was cautious are as follows:

• RHO and Partner both rate to be short in Diamonds, and RHO is sitting over my partner.
• Although partner is likely to have 4-card Hearts, they're going to be sat underneath the 1 bidder.
• I didn't want to give Partner the idea that I had much in the way of hcp. Since Partner probably has 4-card for their initial Double, the impulse to go for a penalty double too early on might prove irresistable. Like you we would play 2 as 8-10 (ish) and 3 and 4 as pre-emptive
• Since Opener was my LHO, any outstanding Spade honours were a priori more likely to be on my left, not where I would prefer them

All of that suggested to me that the lie of the cards was possibly going to favour Opps on this hand. I knew I was probably right when Partner passed over 3 , suggesting he probably didn't have 4-card support. I bid 3 rather than 4 because I'm still happy to compete on this hand given the vulnerability, but was fairly sure that 4 was beyond us, given the above.

I also took note of RHO's Pass over 3 , which suggested to me that maybe the Major suit honours were well placed for us after all and that Partner was stronger than expected. I likewise felt that 4 might be a struggle for Opps given that they don't know for sure about the 4-0 trump split (and Declarer didn't play as if they'd worked the hand out at the table even after he could see Dummy).

Yes, I can bid 3 straight off, and when Dummy went down I was kicking myself for not taking that route, because Dummy made it clear Declarer was short in Clubs and probably had at least 1 if not two Spade tricks and fairly solid Diamonds. I think 4 !SX is at least -3, which means that even 3!SX is too much if Opps cannot bid and make 4 , but it may be difficult for them to find a penalty double of 3 .

[kenberg]

I was thinking less of the danger of 3 X going down, more about the danger of pushing them to 4 making. Of course they have stopped in 3, so they don't think they can make 4, and they could be right. They weren't.  As you note,  they can make 5 if they take the spade finesse, and make 4 easily w/o it, so they are off a bit in their estimate. But they didn't make it, so all's well...


As soon as I recover, I will put up a hand that I completely screwed up. Not screwing up too much too often will take a pair to pretty decent results, in most events.