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.......

 

The Phantom of Wallingford

In the days before computer dealing, deals with wild distribution were much rarer than they seem to be today. Except for the goulashes at rubber bridge, one could go months without seeing an eight card suit for instance. There was one exception to this: a session at Wallingford Bridge Club could be guaranteed to produce numerous hands with 7411 distribution, or a void in each of the hands round the table, and such like. This was so pronounced that we used to refer to the influence of the "phantom of Wallingford" when such extraordinary hands appeared several times in a session. My friends who lived between London and Oxford used to love visiting there for an occasional game, guaranteed to be full of surprises and unusual bidding/play situations!

I was reminded of the phantom at the Cambridge Club's Mixed Pairs evening this week, where we had such delights as a 3019 hand including a club suit solid down to the 5 (except for the 7), and one deal where at different tables both North-South and East-West contracted to play in 4♥ doubled (it didn't make either time).

This was another one:

It is both difficult and (potentially) satisfying to bid up to a (making) slam after the opponents have opened the bidding. My partner and I ran out of steam after this less than satisfactory auction:

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

 

(1) Could open but first in hand vulnerable, prefer to wait it he hope of showing two suiter later. Holding spades, I am less likely to be pushed up too fast.

(2) Although this hand might be considered too strong for a one level overcall, double - when one is almost certain to hear a large number of spades from partner - is high risk and not an efficient use of bidding space.

(3) Trying to find out the nature of partner's hand before committing to spades or diamonds

(4) Overemphasising the strength of the heart suit and, at the same time, taking up bidding space

(5) Getting nervous about that spade void. Maybe 4♦ is ambiguous.

(6) We seem to be getting higher than I would like here. 5♦ doesn't look likely to score well.

(7) Chicken. Partner is a passed hand - are we really missing slam?

I would have preferred:

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

   

(1) Take it gently, there are a lot of spades around

(2) Void in partner's suit: be cautious

(3) Can hardly bid less

(4) With four first round controls, but facing a likely shortage in hearts, six is probably enough.

The play in 7♦ is not  uninteresting. If South leads a heart, declarer can take the free finesse and cash his side winners in clubs and hearts, before making the balance of tricks on a cross-ruff. On the lead of a top spade, there is a bit more work to be done: the sequence has to be right. After ruffing in dummy, declarer plays a club to hand and ruffs a second spade, cashes the heart ace and ruffs a heart before ruffing a third spade in dummy with the trump ace. The top spades having now all appeared, he can now cash the club ace and ruff another heart in hand before leading his master  ♠J. When South fails to ruff, declarer can let this run and then ruff his remaining spade in dummy with the ♦Q. His last three cards are winning diamonds.