At Sixes or Sevens

That we won our Silver Plate match against Anne Catchpole's team - Anne is the sister of Cambridge's Paul Fegarty - is due to a little luck and some solid declarer play by Victor Milman.

There was a little banter at the tea break regarding this slam deal which occurred in the first set.

In my room the contract was 6♠ by West and the lead was ♥Q. How would you plan the play?

♠AQ54		♠KJ83
♥AK1064		♥9
♦A6		♦KJ5
♣A6		♣K10754

Our table's auction was:

West	North	East	South
2♣ (1)	Pass	2♦ (2)	Pass
2NT (3)	Pass	3♣ (4)	Pass
3♦ (5)	Pass	3♥ (6)	Pass
3♠	Pass	4NT (7)	Pass
5♦ (8)	Pass	6♠	All Pass

(1) Benjimanised - showing various kinds of strong hand
(2) Forced
(3) Showing (ostensibly) 23-24 balanced
(4) Asking for majors
(5) Showing at lest one four card (or longer) major
(6) Showing spades
(7) Roman Key Card Blackwood
(8) Four keycards or one.

As dummy went down, Paul Lamford who was declarer said to his partner "Not tempted to try for seven?" Dummy muttered something about needing precise cards and then trailed off.

Paul won the opening lead in hand, ruffed a small heart on table and then cashed dummy's ♠KJ, both opponents following. A club to hand was followed by a second heart ruff with dummy's last trump - revealing the hearts to have started 4-3. Declarer now simply returned to hand with ♦A, drew the last trump and cashed his two heart winners and the minor suit kings for thirteen tricks.

As he took the last trick, Paul looked sternly at dummy, who quivered slightly.

This is undoubtedly a solid line of play at pairs where over tricks matter, but is it the best line in a small slam?

Hearts breaking 4-3 is a 62% chance and there are several additional chances even if they break 5-2 (assuming that spades break reasonably). One would be really unlucky to go down......

Victor Milman at the other table was also in 6♠ but this time played by East on ♣Q opening lead. Winning in dummy with the ace, he cashed ♠A, both opponents following, and continued with ♠Q. When trumps broke, he cashed ♣K and ruffed a club. In fact South had four clubs but also had the last trump, so dummy won this trick. Victor crossed back to his ♦K and ruffed another round of clubs successfully (establishing dummy' last club in the process). He followed with ♥AK, discarding the ♦J, ruffed a heart with his ♠J, drew the outstanding trump and claimed.

On this line of play, even if the third round of clubs had been over-ruffed, there was no way of preventing that ruff of the fourth round of clubs and establishing the suit for twelve tricks.

Now of course, there are distributions where Paul's line works better (notably in certain cases where clubs break worse than 4-2, and spades break 4-1) - but clubs breaking 3-3 or 4-2 is an 84% chance.

All much of a muchness, you may think - but Victor's line also seems to me have clear advantages if the spades prove to be 5-0 and the hearts 5-2 - certainly if the spade length is with South. Cashing the ♠A at trick two gives you more options of playing on cross-ruff lines if the bad break is revealed early, while ruffing a heart may prejudice your options.

Imagine the full deal had been:

	♠None
	♥QJ852
	♦10973
	♣QJ82
♠AQ54		♠KJ83
♥AK1064		♥9
♦A6		♦KJ5
♣A6		♣K10754
	♠109762
	♥73
	♦Q842
	♣93

 

After winning the opening lead with ♥K, you cash the ♠A and receive the bad news, North throwing a diamond. You next cash the three other aces in your hand (in true palooka fashion), discarding dummy's ♦J  - you are going to establish dummy's fifth club to play through South, so you must under no circumstances throw a club! You now follow with a club to dummy's king and a third round of clubs. What is South to do? Wriggle as he may, he cannot stop you from making five tricks from your remaining seven trumps. Say he discards a diamond, declarer ruffs and plays a diamond back to table; a fourth round of clubs follows. If he discards once more, declarer can again ruff small and take three top trumps. If South ruffs in, declarer overruffs with ♠Q, crosses back to table with a trump and cashes his now established fifth club. South can at last make a trump trick - but it is the last one for his side, and the slam makes.

Epilog

Thre are a lot of permutations on this deal - on most normal distributions of the opposing cards, the contract will make with either line. For the less usual distributions, sometimes it works better to winthe first trump trick in the East hand , sometimes in West. I'll let the reader judge.......

 

A Tale of Two's and Three's

My first session back at the table after several weeks away, produced a bit of a mixed bag of results. 

This hand caused a fair degree of hilarity around the room:

This was the “problem” from my side of the table. 

With both sides vulnerable and holding:  ♠A10965 ♥85 ♦10 ♣A10872, I passed as dealer and was slightly taken aback to hear partner open with 6♦, third in hand. What (if anything) should I bid?

Well, if you assume that partner is bidding sanely, the only reasonable explanation must be that he has two two black suit voids. He presumably holds thirteen red cards but has a gap (or perhaps gaps) which cause him to hesitate to contract for thirteen tricks – he might also be worried that a more scientific approach could result in allowing the opponents to find a black suit sacrifice. Perhaps he is missing ♦K or, more likely, ♦Q and some number of small diamonds. Missing either of these key cards, it seems clear to pass.

But in fact, before you have a chance to get the green card out of your bidding box, your left hand opponent doubles!

At teams, I might have considered a redouble – the opportunity for gain (an additional 240 points, for the contract making – assuming no overtrick – against a potential additional loss of 200, would certainly be in my favour, possibly offset by the risk of the opponents running). Playing  pairs, however,  I essayed a smooth pass.

Now look at the full deal:

East’s double had little to recommend it – except that - as confirmed by Deep Finesse - the contract can be defeated. How?

Clearly a black suit lead allows declarer to ditch his two low hearts and simply concede one diamond trick. A diamond lead away from the queen leads the defence to suffer a similar fate - but consider:

a.       ♦Q lead

Close – but not good enough! Declarer wins in hand and cashes two more top diamonds and one top heart, then throws East in by leading his diamond deuce. East perforce wins the trick and now has to give the lead to dummy, allowing the pitch of the losing hearts. (If the ♦2 and ♦3 were switched between the North and East hands, East could avoid the endplay by unblocking his trumps from the top, but North could then draw all the trumps and get off lead with a small heart).

b.      ♥J lead

This is the killer! In fact declarer has to be careful not to go two down! If he wins in hand and cashes his top two trumps, for example, East unblocks with ♦9 and ♦7. He wins the third round of diamonds with ♦Q and plays back the ♦3. If declarer “carelessly” wins this, he is stranded in hand again and must lose two hearts at the end. So he must underplay his deuce!

Alternatively declarer can simply duck the opening lead of ♥J and East has no good lead to the second trick; he can always be endplayed to give dummy the lead for a pitch of the second losing heart.

Thank you to Jon Cooke for pointing this out to me. (I see from the travellers however that he and David Kendrick defended 5♦ and their opponents made twelve tricks, so sadly he did not have a chance to produce this brilliance at the table)