Another "wrong" contract
Here's one from a few days ago. Playing with an intermediate partner against intermediate players, we got this game:
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The auction went:
1♠ - 2♣ - 2♥ - 3♣
3♥ - pass - pass - pass
You may disagree with the 2♥ bid, it's non-forcing and I thought the hand would play better in ♥ than in ♠. Partner somehow got scared and only bid 3♥ with this beauty. I didn't have much to say with my garbage...
Anyway, we ended up in 3♥ played by South, instead of 4♥ or 4♠. We had to play this contract, so lets make the best out of it. LHO started with ♠7, proving his poor skills.
It's typical in MP to go for the best score. Chances are low that we'll get a good score here since we're in the wrong contract (the field will probably bid 4♥) so the only possibility to score some big ones is when ♥K is offside and 4♥ can be defeated. That's why I started with ♥A, luckily dropping the K! A moment of joy, but the play is not over yet.
We have 12 top tricks now, so there might be a squeeze or fake squeeze in there. A real squeeze is quite hard with ♣8 and ♦J as menaces. Nevertheless, the best chance to fool the opponents was to go for a ruffing squeeze. Cashing all but 1 ♥, followed by 5 ♠s is probably the best shot. This is the end position:
♦ A
♣ 8x
♥ x
♦ Jx
Nobody discarded a high ♦, but they kept on discarding ♣. Ruffing the small ♣ and using ♦A as an entry got me to 13 tricks.
Obviously the opponents made critical errors, but the point of cashing ♥A is still valid after a ♣ lead. The ruffing squeeze didn't have much chance of success, but in function of the opponents you can always give them a chance to make mistakes. All RHO had to do is count the trumps and the ♣s, so she'd know that discarding a ♣ would be fatal.
3 comments:
I never understand this reasoning. Surely you should ignore the people in 4H because they'll always either beat you or lose to you and there's nothing you can do about it. Concern yourself with the other people who are in partscore and take the best line for the maximum score.
If playing the HA works then all you've done is taken an anti-percentage* line to try and beat the people in a partscore and got lucky. You were beating the people in 4H whatever you did.
* Assuming it is anti-percentage - it depends on what you make of the overcall I suppose.
But I'm quite prepared to be proved wrong. :-)
Michael
If HK is onside (you have a bottom since 4H makes), you'll lose some MP's against the others who are in 3H as well. However, if HK is offside (which is more likely by the vulnerable overcall imo) you'll get the same score if it's Kx (still a near bottom), and you'll get a better score (read top) if it's the K stiff.
If you have no idea of where the K is, you have indeed a 50% chance of success/failure. However, if there's an indication of the position of the K, it's useful to go for it imo. Still, it's a matter of attitude towards poor scores.
Sorry - I must have misunderstood. If you're playing the Ace because you think the King is a favourite to be singleton with East then that's good bridge and well done.
To do so for any other reason isn't.
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