Comedy of errors

The crucial thing when playing error-prone bridge is, of course, to not be the last to make a mistake.  This hand illustrates what I am talking about.

Playing online, we used a precision auction to investigate slam and stop at 5S:

The 1C was Precision, showing 16+ points.  Partner's 1NT is natural, showing 8-11 points.  I showed my 5 card suit and he raised with 3-card support. 4C is a control-bid as is 4H.  This denies a diamond control, so I know that partner does not have the Ace of diamonds. Should I explore slam?

This is where Culbertson's rule comes in handy. If you can come up with a minimum hand consistent with the bidding where slam is cold, then explore slam. What does it need for slam to be cold? Partner needs the king of spades, Ace of hearts, QJ of diamonds and KJ of clubs.  That is 14 points. Partner probably has 10-11. So, what should I do? I should sign off in 4S.

But ... mistake #1, I bid Roman-Keycard Blackwood.  Partner showed 1 key card with 5D.  East now doubled for the lead.  That is mistake #2 -- he should not have doubled (you will see why shortly). I bid 5S which gets passed out.

West, following his partner's lead-directing double, leads the 10 of diamonds. This is mistake #3.  What should I play from dummy?

The 10 would normally deny the Jack, so it clear to put up the Queen. When East goes up, I can now finesse his Jack with K-7. Watch the spots! Unfortunately, I failed to do that. I woodenly played low from the board -- mistake #4.  The right play is why East was wrong to double -- left to my own devices, I can not play the diamonds for only one loser.

But East didn't make a mistake now. He correctly ducked the 10 diamond lead and my 5S contract was toast.  I had made the last mistake on this hand, in not going up with the Queen of diamonds.

Playing in a sectional Swiss over the weekend, there was board after board of this type of play-of-the-hand mistakes. Mostly, my mistakes didn't cost us imps, but they prevented us from gaining useful imps. We ended up losing matches when the opponents managed to find and bid against-the-odds slams and games.  We would gain 1-2 imps a board and then lose it all on the freak hand. Gaining 2-3 imps a board, which is what we should have been doing sans card play issues, would have gotten us a better finish.

As it was, though, losing our matches early allowed us to blitz back through the soft-underbelly of the field, and finish 3rd in B. Still, it felt ridiculous to be playing a C team in the last game of the Open Swiss and finding that we were getting a double game swing on this hand:

.

Vul: None

Dlr: East

N

Pard

♠

KJx xxxx

♥

xx

♦

xx

♣

xx

.

W

West

♠

x

♥

xx

♦

Jxxx

♣

AKQJxx

E

East

♠

xx

♥

AQJ xxxx

♦

xx

♣

xx

.

S

Me

♠

AQx

♥

Kx

♦

AKQxx

♣

xxx

.

At our table, the auction went:

W

West

N

North

E

East

S

Me

—

—

2♥

3♦

Pass

3♠

Pass

4♠

All Pass

You could argue over whether you should double or bid 3D or 2NT with my hand (what would you do?). But you have got to do something ...  At the other table, our teammates preempted a level higher (7-card suit, 6 losers whichever way you look at it) and the auction went:

East

West

3♥

4♥

—

—

Somehow, both contracts made (can you come up with a legitimate line for 4H to make?) and it took us a while to realize that the board was not a push.

Partner doesn't have it

I went looking for perfecto bids and went past our last positive score.  At matchpoints, of course, this is a disastrous and we could not recover from three zeros.

Holding:

N

Me

♠

xxx

♥

AKxxx

♦

Kxx

♣

Qx

I opened 1H and this was the auction:

W

West

N

Me

E

East

S

South

—

1♥

Pass

1♠

Pass

1NT

2♣

Pass

Pass

Dbl

Pass

2♦

All Pass

That reopening double put partner in an uncomfortable position. His hand was 4-1-4-4 with 8 points i.e. he held neither 2 hearts nor 5 spades and his clubs were 9 high, so he didn't think he could pass 2C.  1NT and defending 2C were our last positive scores. Given that the auction looks like a misfit, I ought to have passed.

Here was another poor decision. I held:

N

North

♠

87

♥

K10875

♦

Qxx

♣

KQ10

I passed and the auction was:

W

West

N

Me

E

East

S

South

—

Pass

2♥

2♠

Pass

2NT

Pass

3♣

Pass

3NT

All Pass

Partner had bid 2S essentially to play since I had passed originally. Unfortunately, I didn't get the memo.  I was so sure that his hand was strong that I drove to game opposite the 16 or so points I imagined him having.

The third zero of the night came about on this deal.  I held:

N

North

♠

Axx

♥

9xxxx

♦

x

♣

Axxx

The auction was:

W

West

N

North

E

East

S

South

—

—

1NT¹

2♥²

Pass

4♥

All Pass

(1) 15-17

(2) Natural, with extra shape

4H went down 1. The rest of the field was in 3S their way, going down 1.

As the bridge maxim goes "if you expect partner to have a card for your bid, he doesn't have it."  The thing  common to all my bids was expecting partner to have something -- shape in the first, points in the second and tenaces in the third -- that he didn't have.  There were hints in each of the deals that pointed me to this, if I had bothered to look. In the first hand, partner passed over 2C, denying the ability to bid 2H or 2S. In the second, I had passed the first time, so partner is telling me something by retreating from 2NT.  In the third hand, I need too many nice things to happen to make 4H and I do have two defensive tricks.  So, 3H is probably enough.

Squeeze wanted

As an intermediate player, I set goals to meet. As in consistently doing something that I find hard to do.

My last goal was to find and bid slams, especially grand slams. So, it was cool, therefore, when we managed to bid and make two grand slams in the course of a 8-board robot tournament on BBO.

The first was 7D found in the teeth of aggressive competition:

and the other was a slow march towards 7S after North opened 1S and I bid 2C:

It was not completely rosy. We missed this cold small slam on the final board:

We would have found it, I think, if I had bid 3S instead of 4H. Still 2 of 3 slams is not bad. 

Time to set the next skill-based goal. My next goal is to find a squeeze at the table. I know how squeezes work ... but as far as I know, I've never successfully executed a squeeze.

I had high hopes on this deal (yes, I miscounted my points and opened 2NT -- the things one does to a robot partner!):

West leads a spade. I took the King and led back a heart. West took his ace and led back another heart. I took my winners in hearts and spades. And the end-position when the last heart was led from dummy was:

.

Vul: None

Dlr: South

N

North

♠

—

♥

—

♦

Kx

♣

xxx

.

W

West

♠

x

♥

—

♦

Jx

♣

Jxx

E

East

♠

—

♥

—

♦

Qxx

♣

Qxx

.

S

Me

♠

—

♥

—

♦

A10x

♣

AK10

.

East throws a club and West throws a spade.  It is declarer who is squeezed. The only chance now seems to be to finesse the 10 and hope East started with QJ. If East splits his QJ, then I can go back to dummy with King of diamonds and repeat club finesse. That doesn't work here with the honors split.

Oh, well. I'm sure a squeeze will come one of these days. I'll keep looking.