Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Preempting the play

With a system change, I find myself playing a lot more low-level contracts, playing them blind and messing them up. See if you can do better.  You open 1NT (12-15) and three passes later, you get to play the hand. You get a heart lead, you play low from dummy and East inserts the 10 of hearts. Plan the play.
N
dummy
♠
Jxx
♥
Kxx
♦
xxx
♣
Axxx
Lead: ♥7
S
You
♠
KQx
♥
Qxx
♦
KQx
♣
Q10xx

The contract is only 1NT. I can come to 7 tricks with 2 spades, 1 heart, 1 diamond, 2 clubs and a possible extra trick either in hearts (if west has the Ace) or diamonds (by leading twice towards my hand).  The problem was that the 7 of hearts looked high and so, I thought it was East who had the heart length. So, I ducked a heart.  Bad assumption. Then, when I was in dummy with a heart, I decided to use that single entry to lead a diamond. Second bad move.  I needed to breach clubs, full of holes as they are.

The whole hand:
.
N
North
♠
Jxx
♥
Kxx
♦
xxx
♣
Axxx
.
W
West
♠
xxx
♥
AJxxx
♦
AJxx
♣
J
Lead: ♥7
E
East
♠
Axxx
♥
10x
♦
10xx
♣
K9xx
.
S
South
♠
KQx
♥
Qxx
♦
KQx
♣
Q10xx
.
Standard bidders would open my hand 1C, west would overcall 1H and then the hand becomes much easier to play because you have an approximate count.  So, this was a matchpoint zero.

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1 comment:

  1. UnknownOctober 3, 2012 at 6:04 AM

    You are actually in a better position than standard players, no? Over the standard beginning of 1C-(1H), might you expect the field to bid 1NT with your partner's hand, and for that to become the final contract to receive a lead of the HT through your Qxx?

    If the above is the case, then your receiving a heart lead from the long heart hand, giving you two heart tricks, places you in a preferable position.

    With your side having bid no suits, due to the weak notrump, I think it is unlikely that opening leader is leading other than "fourth from longest and strongest".

    So ... the hand might, as you surmised, have been easier to diagnose had you been playing standard. But "easier" for both you AND the opponents!

    ReplyDelete

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