Robots have no humor

Playing in the bridgez tourney, I was doing very well until I got a near-bottom on the last board of the 16-board tournament:

After the robot North opened 2C and rebid 2H, I knew that we were headed towards 3NT. But 3NT should do better being played with the strong hand hidden, so I decided to temporize by showing my 5-card club suit. Bad mistake, as the robot now put me in the no-play slam.

10% on the last board cost me at least two places in the final rankings, but it didn't drop me below the Wbridge5 robot.

So, on to my list of bad predictions, goes the title of this post.

Virtue unrewarded

This is the hand you pick up as South in a club game:



Three passes, and it comes to you.  What's your bid?

There are arguments for either 1NT (15-17 balanced), or opening 1H.  I decided to open 1NT.

Partner now bids 2NT.  We play 4-suit transfers, so that's a transfer to diamonds.

I bid 3D, saying that I like diamonds (with a doubleton or three small cards, I would bid 3C).

Now, partner bids 4C.  This is a cue-bid for diamonds and denies spade and heart controls.  Well, I can see three losers then. I bid 4D, to play, but partner drives to 5D.

"Down 1," I am thinking as the dummy comes down, but it turns that we have had a bidding misunderstanding. Partner was simply showing his shape (we have no way to show 5/5 in the minors, since we use 3C and 3D as shortness bids) and had forgotten that we only accept minor-suit transfers if we like them.

It would have been nice if they had started with a spade, but LHO led a club.  To prevent 3 spade losers, I have to ruff a spade in my hand, but if I play spades immediately, they will probably find their club ruff.  The alternate route, to avoid playing spades now, is to ruff hearts in dummy.  I proceeded to do that (click Next on the hand above to see the play).

5D bid and made!  Virtue is unrewarded of course.  Other tables opened 1H, and ended up in 3NT., making 4, since there is no way for the defense to cash more than 3 tricks before we take our 10 minor suit ones.

Conventions are never simple

A friendly blogger, Phasmid, put me in touch with one of his regular partners and we played at a Boston-area club.  I sent my new partner a "plain-vanilla 2/1 card" to use as a starting point.  We decided to play pretty much that card except that partner said he had very specific views on leads.  4th-best leads were fine at NT, he said, but in suit contracts he very much preferred 3rd and 5th because it helped get the count right on the hand much quicker.

I agreed. Sure, it was going to be a bit more mental work, but I thought I'd be able to figure it out. And I was. When partner led the deuce of spades after bidding the suit, I knew he had a 5-card suit.  In a few deals, it did help me get the count right. This 3rd-and-5th thing was a pretty easy convention.  If any new partner wants to play it, I thought, I'd be happy to agree.

In the last round, though, we ran into this hand.  This was the auction (we were East-West):

W

West

N

North

E

East

S

South

—

—

Pass

Pass

Pass

1♠

Pass

3♠¹

All Pass

(1) invite

Partner led the 9 of hearts.  This was the whole deal, so you can follow along:

.

Board: 6

Vul: E-W

Dlr: East

N

North

♠

A10543

♥

A83

♦

J82

♣

A7

.

W

Me

♠

6

♥

KQJ7

♦

1094

♣

J9543

Lead: ♥9

E

Pard

♠

Q87

♥

94

♦

K753

♣

KQ62

.

S

South

♠

KJ92

♥

10652

♦

AQ6

♣

108

.

On partner's lead of the 9 of hearts, declarer played a low heart from dummy and I played low (otherwise his 10 becomes a trick).  Declarer ducked and partner continued with the 4 that declarer took with his Ace.  Next, declarer played two rounds of spades foregoing the finesse ("nine never").  I am forced to discard clubs of course, so I discouraged clubs by discarding the highest club I thought I could afford (the five).

Next, came a heart from dummy. I won with partner discarding a low club (encouraging).  I led the three of clubs. Declarer went up with the ace and led a low diamond to the queen.  When that finesse won, he ruffed a heart back to his hand and led a club.

This was the situation when declarer led the 7 of clubs:

.

Board: 6

Vul: E-W

Dlr: East

N

North

♠

43

♥

—

♦

J8

♣

7

.

W

Me

♠

—

♥

—

♦

109

♣

J94

Lead: ♥9

E

Pard

♠

Q

♥

—

♦

K7

♣

KQ

.

S

South

♠

J9

♥

—

♦

A6

♣

10

.

Partner wins this trick, but has now been endplayed.  3S making was a bottom board; 3S down one would have been average. The cause of this happened two tricks previously: when I led the club, partner needed to unblock the Queen of clubs, but he didn't because I had led the wrong card.  Apparently, playing 3rd and 5th, the right lead from my club holding was the 9 (second highest), not the 3 of clubs.  Partner, realizing then that I have the one card higher than the 9 unblocks a club, allowing me to win the trick with my Jack and lead a diamond through.

My usual lead agreements are different. We play fourth highest leads from length, but that is only on opening lead. Here, in the middle of the hand, after I had discarded clubs, etc. my lead would simply be an attitude lead. I would lead a low club from an honor, and a high-club denying one.  Since partner has just seen all the honor cards, he would then be able to place me with the Jack.

In other words, playing either convention, the right play is obvious. But once I had led the wrong card, partner had no choice (just as he would not have unblocked had I led the 9 of clubs, denying the Jack if we were playing attitude leads). The moral of the story is to not agree to play unfamiliar conventions -- there are subtle extensions that an expert partner will play you for.

Marring a pleasant evening

One of the benefits of blogging about bridge is meeting kindred souls when on business trips. And so it was that I got to play with Jeff.  It was a very pleasant evening although it was marred throughout by some terrible bridge on my part.

Both my bidding and play were poor.  Here's an example of a poor bid. Jeff opened 1NT, RHO overcalled 2S and this was my holding:

E

East

♠

x

♥

Kx

♦

AJ10xxx

♣

KQ9x

What would you do?

I bid 3D (going through 2NT would have been a sign-off), so this was forcing one round.  Over his 3NT response, I bid 4S (a general-purpose forcing bid).  Jeff now bid 5NT (pick-a-slam). This is where I went off the rails.  What should I have bid?  6C, of course. Instead, I bid 6D and then proceeded to misguess the direction of the diamond finesse for down 1 (Would you do better? If dummy shows up with Kx, who would you play for the Queen of diamonds?)

Here's an example of a poor play.  The last-but-one board of the night, I lost my concentration and decided to play a dummy reversal line on this 4S contract:

W

West

♠

10xx

♥

AK

♦

xxx

♣

AKJ10x

Lead: ♥7

E

East

♠

AKxxx

♥

10x

♦

Kxxxx

♣

x

Dummy has three straight diamond losers!  What was I thinking?

A pleasant, fun evening, nevertheless.  Pity my bridge wasn't better.

Beyond rules of thumb

Playing in the club qualifiers for the Grand National Teams, we were playing an A-flight team.  It was in the middle of the event, and we were still in it.  I didn't know it yet, but our team would finish just 4 victory points shy of first place. If only I gotten this board, right ...

What's this board that I wish I would have gotten right?

W

Pard

♠

Jxx

♥

Jxxx

♦

10xx

♣

xxx

Lead: ♥K

E

Me

♠

AKQxx

♥

—

♦

AKJxxx

♣

Jx

I was in 5D after this auction:

W

Pard

N

RHO

E

Me

S

LHO

—

1♣

Dbl

1♥

Pass

2♥

3♦

4♥

Pass

Pass

4♠

Pass

5♦

All Pass

I ruffed the King of hearts that was led and played the Ace of diamonds.  LHO followed with the 7 of diamonds and RHO with the 3.  Decision time.

I had two options:

1. Play a spade to the Jack and finesse the Jack of diamonds.
2. Bang down the King of diamonds.

What would you have done?

At the table, I woodenly followed the "eight-ever, nine-never" axiom and banged down the King of diamonds.  LHO showed out, and 5D was down one.  At the other table, they were in 4S after our teammates playing Precision opened 1D (11-15, 2+ diamonds) and the person in my seat doubled and bid 2S over 2H because he was not sure what a diamond bid would mean.

I could have done better than the apriori odds. I have 18 high-card points and partner has 2.  Assume that opener has 13 and responder 7.  Why would responder with such a weak holding go all the way to 4H after my 3D bid?  The only possible reason is that LHO has a distributional hand, with a double-fit and shortness in my suit.   LHO is likely to be 6-4 in hearts and clubs (of course this means that RHO raised with 3, but holding AJx, he probably would).  Also, since there are 5 spades and 4 diamonds out, her singleton is most likely to be diamonds.  Everything fits the 2-6-1-4 theory. I should have taken the finesse.

Play to make

At a club game, I picked up a nice hand as South and opened 2NT (20-21).  Partner bid Stayman and we were in 4H.  What's your plan?

N

North

♠

Jxx

♥

J108x

♦

xxx

♣

Kxx

S

Me

♠

Qx

♥

AKQx

♦

AK10x

♣

QJx

Looks like I have three top losers: 2 spades and 1 club.  And one slow diamond loser with no place to park it.  Looks like 4H is down 1.

With partner's 4-3-3-3 hand, many in the room will bid 3NT, and not go through Stayman.  How would that contract fare? Assume that they lead spades.  We have it stopped, but even with the Jack of spades, it comes to only 8 tricks. So, South would have to play a club, and 3NT will go down.  It's going to be a flat board with both contracts down 1.  So, I played out the hand quickly.

But I should have thought harder and considered all the ways 3NT can make: spades could be 4-4.  Or, if spades are 5-3, the person with the Ace of clubs may have no spade left to lead.   3NT is actually an odds-on contract.  I really did need to make 4H.  

The only chance of making 4H is to hope West has the Ace of clubs (so that the King of clubs is the second entry to dummy) and to hope that East has QJ of diamonds (so that I can finesse the 10 of diamonds).  Pretty slim chances, but I should have played for it.

And wouldn't you know it, West did have the Ace of clubs and East did have QJ of diamonds. 4H making would have been a top (420), beating out all the 3NTs (spades were 4-4, so 400).  Instead, 4H down 1 was a bottom.  We ended up third with 57% when we could have been first with 61% ...