Squeezed without the count

The weakest declarer in the room is declaring 3NT. This is not meant to be disparaging. It's simply that he is here to have fun. He likes the crowd. It's a friendly club game.  So why bother counting side-suits?

Somehow though, the play has me caught in a vice. This is the end-position as declarer plays the 10 of hearts.  What should I play?

.

Board: 16

Vul: N-S

Dlr: North

N

Dummy

♠

—

♥

—

♦

K7

♣

A10

.

W

Poor Me

♠

—

♥

—

♦

J4

♣

K7

Lead: ♦4

E

Immaterial

♠

4

♥

—

♦

3

♣

85

.

S

Declarer

♠

—

♥

10

♦

♣

QJx

.

What should I throw?  At one level, it doesn't matter. If I bare the king of clubs, declarer can throw a diamond and when the king of clubs shows up, he can claim.  If I throw a diamond, he can throw a club, lead to the Ace and both diamonds are good. In other words, I am squeezed.

But I have a chance. Declarer has certainly not been counting.  He's going to throw the same card regardless of what I throw.  Knowing this, what do I throw? Hmm ... 10 of clubs and 7 of diamonds ... I decide that he will be throwing a diamond, so I throw one too.

Declarer throws a ... club.  I still don't know why, because he then proceeds to face his cards and claim two tricks, saying "I get two tricks and you get one."

"No, we don't," I tell him, "You get all three."

"The king of clubs is not gone" he insists, turning to my partner, "you have the king of clubs, right?".

"It doesn't matter," I tell him, "because whatever you lead now, you will be in dummy and are not getting back to your hand. The 7 of diamonds is good. You will get all three tricks."

"Really?," he asked puzzled.

"Yes, you get all the remaining tricks."

So, what is this play called? Not "squeeze without the count" ...

Get the kids off the street before the coup

I was South in a club game when I got to a 6H contract:

I got the lead of the Queen of spades. I took the Ace. Then, I played a low heart to the King, drawing the queen from West.  Looks like hearts 4-1.  How do you play?

I have A-10-8 over the J-9 with righty.  Two finesses will do him in. But unfortunately, I will then have 2 spade losers because dummy's clubs are needed to throw away two diamonds.  I decided that I would take one heart finesse, ruff one spade and then hope to play diamonds for one loser and effect a trump coup to take care of East's hearts.

To effect a trump coup, I need to shorten my trumps to have the same length as East. How can I do that? If you click "Next" above, you will see the right line to take. Essentially, I need take a heart finesse, and then cash the Ace of diamonds. Go to dummy's clubs and and throw away the *diamonds* so that you can ruff a diamond.  Ruffing a diamond is the way to shorten my trump length and then the trump coup is on.  All thirteen tricks are mine!

At the table, though, I didn't see the right line. Instead, I played the queen of diamonds on trick 3. East covered and I played the Ace and another diamond to West's Jack.  But now, the defense slipped -- it turned out that West really had only 5 spades, not six and so he had 3 diamonds, not two. My play looked like I had two diamonds and so West shifted to a spade that I ruffed, and I was able to make 6H.

Probably not a terrible board, but I needed to do the trump coup right.

Extreme Moysian

A few weeks ago, intrigued by a discussion about raising responder in a 1m-1M auction with only 3 spots, I started reading up on how to play Moysian contracts.  It came in useful today, although the contract was not exactly a 4-3 fit.

The reason I was playing a 4-2 fit at the 4-level was because I took partner's double as negative. Vulnerable, no less.  That's a benefit of playing with random partners on BBO -- you get experience playing inconceivable contracts.



I won't ask what you think of the bidding.  East started with top heart and small heart.  What's your plan?

The spade spots are actually quite decent. I'm missing the KQ of spades, but do have the J-10-9.  Maybe west preempted with 3 spades?  Could the spades be split 4-3?  I could escape this for one down.

East, however, inexplicably ducked the 10 of spades (he should take it and shift to a diamond to put partner in and get a heart ruff).  So, I ended up making the contract (click Next to see my play).

The other table was in 2C making 3, so this was 11 imps to the unhinged bidders.

It's not a sacrifice if you play to make

After two passes, I am South with 9 points and 7 diamonds, unfavorable vulnerability.  What is your  bid?

N

Pard

♠

x

♥

Kx

♦

AJxx

♣

9xx xxx

Lead: ♣A

S

Me

♠

Axx

♥

xxx

♦

KQx xxx x

♣

—

My hand is way too strong offensively for a preempt.  So, I decided to open it 1D.  The bidding now went:

W

West

N

North

E

East

S

Me

—

Pass

Pass

1♦

Dbl

2♦

4♠

5♦

Pass

Pass

Dbl

All Pass

Unfavorable, it is a dangerous sacrifice, but I pushed on to 5D regardless and got doubled.

Dummy comes down on the Ace of clubs.  What's your line?

I decided that going down 1 doubled was probably going to be okay, since 4S is cold.

But I had set my sights too low -- I should be able to make this thing.  All I need to do is to ruff two spades and one heart in dummy.  Then, I lose only two hearts.  Unthinkingly, though I pulled two rounds of trumps, and when the Ace of hearts was with East, I went down one.  Still a good board, but I needed to play to make.

Playing it right the first time around

One of the ways I have been trying to improve my card play is to go through the deals in Fred Gitelman's Bridge Master 2000 program.  It is really good in that it moves key cards and opponents' distributions around so that if you make a suboptimal play, you will not be able to make the contract.

The problem, however, is that on lesson deals, one gets several chances to get the line right. Not so in real-life deals.  I would have appreciated a mulligan on this hand I played online.

How do you plan to make 4H after West leads the Ace of spades (presumably Ace from AK) and then switches to a club?

Suppose you were to test the hearts, and they turn out to be 3-2?  Now what?

I got lazy. After pulling 2 rounds of trumps and discovering the friendly lay of the suit, I pulled the outstanding trump and played diamonds from the top, planning to ruff out the queen and claim.  Can you see the hitch?

Yes, it's as if BBO had the spirit of Bridge Master.  East turned up with Q10xx in diamonds and the contract could no longer be made.  One line that works is to play 2 rounds of trump, play the Ace of diamonds to catch a potential singleton Q or 10 and then cross to dummy with a trump and finesse the Jack.

This was the complete deal:

The little club that could

The Norman bridge club (usual game: 3.5 tables) is cleaning up in the ACBL's nationwide Mini-McKenney races.

In the 5-20 race, recently graduated OU student Kyle Olson is second with 248 points.

In the 20-50 race, current OU student Eric Genheimer is first with 396 points. But his position is precarious enough that he is off to Kansas City to play in the last regional of the year.

In the 200-300 race, OU professor Christian Remling is first with 404 points.

In the 500-1000 race, husband-and-wife duo Janet and Don Davis are 14th and 15th with 384 points, but looking to move up after the Kansas City regional.

Although no longer part of the Norman bridge scene, Jay Barron is a former OU student who learned bridge in Norman, so I'll brag on him anyway.  Jay played in the Phoenix nationals with Zia Mahmood and they placed 12th in the Blue Ribbon Pairs.

Congratulations, everyone.  It's been great playing with you all year.

p.s. Obviously, most of their points were gained at tournaments. Our club games award 0.8 for winning, so even if you win every week, it adds up to only 40 points.

p.s.2.  Final updates:

5-20 points KYLE OLSON With 336.79 points   ---KYLE WAS 2ND IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY   

20-50 points ERIC GENHEIMER With 511.55 points ---ERIC WAS 2ND IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY  

200-300 points CHRISTIAN REMLING With 408.18 points--- CHRISTIAN WAS 1ST IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY 

500-1000 points JANET DAVIS with 500.11 points ---JANET WAS 6TH IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY

What to do when your partner is being boneheaded

One of my favorite partners asked if I wanted to play in the unit's Christmas game.  We don't play together too often because, to play with him, I'd have to play at the Oklahoma City club, which is a 80-mile round-trip from Norman.  So, the last time we played together was about six months ago. Luckily, permission to play on Saturday evening was forthcoming, and I played in my first Christmas party game.

The club was jam-packed.  Good food, good bridge, and (spiked) egg nog to follow. What's not to like?  There were three sections of 14 tables each.  This is, by far, the largest club game I have ever been to.

I started the game in a stupor. Maybe it was the tryptophan.  In a clear-cut auction, after partner had signed off in 5S, I pushed to 6S on the strength of a void.  It turned out that we were off two cashing aces.  The next board, I bid 4S over the opponents' 1H, tempted by the favorable vulnerability. I got doubled, down 2, when they had nothing their way.  And so on.  The first six boards, I estimated that my decisions had gotten us six zeroes (the hand records show that we were 33% on those boards).

"Sorry," I told partner after the sixth board, "that I am playing so poorly. I hope you didn't have any expectations for this evening."

"Don't worry," he said, "I have seen experts take a view on hands with voids. There's a fellow in California who recommends that you take a leap in that position. It just didn't work this time."  Did I mention that he is a favorite partner? This is why.  Of course, he knew that I knew that one doesn't take "views" at matchpoints. You want to be in field contracts and win on cardplay.  But, it was still nice of him to say that.  One of the things about having a good, supportive partner is that it allows you to settle down.

The seventh and eighth boards were against one of the best pairs in the area.  We got two average boards against them.  Those average boards on a table we knew everyone was getting clobbered were the turning point.

On the back half, the opponents gifted us eight tops and near-tops more than making up for the slow start.  We finished with a 61% game, good enough for second overall (missing first by just half a board).

All but two of our tops were on defense -- a measure of how important it was that partner (rather than berating me for my boneheaded decisions) calmed me down. Here's an example of a cold-top (click Next to see the play; I was west):


Yes, declarer can keep this to down 1, and 2H can even make. Tops in matchpoints are often opponents' gifts, and this was no exception.

So, what do you do when your partner is being an all-around idiot?  Calm him down with some cockamamie story about a Californian expert.