Nice one for the defense

Friday we encountered a nice hand, but opponents fell asleep. Put yourself in their shoes.

You hold:
♠ Kxxxx
♥ Kx
♦ Jxx
♣ xxx

Everyone Vulnerable, your partner opens 1♣, RHO (= me) intervenes 1NT, and everyone passes.

What do you lead?

The player at the table started with a low ♠ which worked out the best possible way, but they didn't realise it. In dummy you get:
♠ Txx
♥ Q9xx
♦ Q9xx
♣ Tx

Partner takes ♠A, continues with the ♠Q and a small ♠ to your K. Declarer discards ♥T. You continue with 2 more ♠s. Partner asks for a ♣ switch (playing Odd/Even signals, he plays ♣5 and discards ♦T), while declarer throws away a ♦ and a ♥ from dummy while discarding a ♣ and a small ♥ from his hand.

Your turn again: what do you play?

At the table, a ♣ was played and I claimed 7 tricks.

Here's the full deal:

Dealer: East Vul: Both Scoring: MP	♠ Txx ♥ Q9xx ♦ Q9xx ♣ Tx
♠ Kxxxx ♥ Kx ♦ Jxx ♣ xxx		♠ AQx ♥ Jxxx ♦ T ♣ AQxxx
	♠ Jx ♥ ATx ♦ AK8xx ♣ KJx

I got triple squeezed on the 5th ♠, so I had to bare my ♥A (baring ♣K would be a disaster, and discarding a ♦ is throwing my 7th trick away).

How could West know what to do? Well, it's pretty simple imo. I don't discard any ♦ in my hand, so I must have 5 of them. With 4 I would keep them in dummy and discard one from my hand. I showed 2 ♠s, I must have 3-4♥s and 2-3♣s. Either I have ♣Ax and ♥ATxx, or ♣Kxx and ♥ATx. Looking at my discarding, I think it's clear that I only have 3 ♥s (the unblocking T at first opportunity), a 5332 is more likely to overcall 1NT rather than a 5422 with a good 5 card suit, so the best chance for defeating the contract should be to play a low ♥ from Kx and hope your partner has ♣A. Another clue that might strengthen this idea is that partner would probably act with a good 6 card ♣ (AQJ9xx or KQJ9xx is good enough to either double or rebid the suit), so he'll only have 5 of them.

Funny one from friday

I've had a lot of work lately and I didn't get any really interesting hands as well, so I skipped a week to post...

Friday we had a funny one again. The auction went:
1♣! - pass - 1♦! - 1♥
2♦ - 2♥ - Dbl - pass*
3♦ - pass - 3♥** - Dbl
5♦ - all pass
(1♣ is 15+HCP any hand, 1♦ is negative)
(*) This pass is a poor choice imo, at the ** moment LHO clearly showed she was ready to bid 3♥, so she better did it right away.

Now we get following hands:
♠ Tx
♥ x
♦ AJT9xxx
♣ AKQ

♠ AJxx
♥ xx
♦ Qxx
♣ Txxx

LHO starts with ♥A, gets a high ♥ from partner, so switches to ♠Q. This is really annoying since I don't have a safety play anymore (♣J will probably fall somewhere on AKQ, so cashing ♦A would be the best play if LHO continued ♥).

So here we are, at the crossroads. Our communications have just been destroyed, and you need to play ♦ for no losers. 2 lines of play possible, only 1 will work, one of them is percentage (let ♦Q run) while the other one is not (cash ♦A). However you get the feeling that ♦K is stiff offside, and I trust my intuition pretty much since I know I'm more right than wrong in such situations (I once read - I guess from Fred Gitelman - that you should test if you can trust your feeling, and never trust it if it fails you too much, or trust it when it's right most of the time). If this is one of those few times that I'm wrong, I better have some argument to play like this...

While I'm thinking about what I'm going to do, I hear my RHO sighing cause she's bored. So imo she knows that the contract will either go down anyway, or that it doesn't matter, or she just hopes that I start to play and take a poor decision. I know both my opponents pretty well, so I guess she has the ♦K. Not good enough for an argument obviously, so I decide to let LHO help me out a bit. I play ♦Q and LHO hesitates a bit before playing a low ♦. I still know my opponents, so I'm quite sure she would never hesitate with Kx. So I took my ♦A dropping the King! :-) The rest was easy: ♣ 3-3 and I still had a ♦ entry to discard the ♠ on ♣T. 5♦+1.

Afterwards we had lots of fun at the bar because of the fact that I based my decision on RHO sighing. In Dutch we call a stiff King a "naked gentleman", so the dual interpretation caused a lot of laughter.
I think next week everyone will start sighing against me. :-)

Tight defense

Playing imps, the auction went (West dealer, EW vulnerable):
1NT - 2♣* - pass - 2♦*
pass - pass - Dbl - pass
2♠ - pass - pass - pass

2♣ shows either ♦ or both Majors
2♦ is "Pass or Correct"

Partner leads ♦J and you see following dummy:
♠ 6542
♥ KQ7
♦ 5
♣ Q8653

You hold:
♠ A83
♥ JT953
♦ A8
♣ T92

Obviously you take ♦A at trick 1.

How do you plan the defense?

Question is how you'll defeat this contract. EW have 22-24HCP, this leaves partner with 7-9HCP. You already know partner doesn't have ♦K or ♦Q. LHO might have passed with 4 ♦s from KQ, so he probably has only 3 ♦s. This also explains partner's intervention: a poor but long suit. So his values must be somewhere else. The only way to defeat this contract seems if he has good trumps and an Ace. Partner will have 2 trumps at most, so chances are low. However, ♥A or ♣A or ♣K won't run away on declarer's ♦s. We can overruff dummy, so I think the best opportunity we have is to continue a ♦ and hope.

Here's the full deal:

Dealer: West Vul: EW Scoring: imps	♠ KJ ♥ 62 ♦ JT97643 ♣ A7
♠ QT97 ♥ A84 ♦ KQ2 ♣ KJ4		♠ 6542 ♥ KQ7 ♦ 5 ♣ Q8653
	♠ A83 ♥ JT953 ♦ A8 ♣ T92

This is what should happen: declarer plays a ♥ to the K and plays a low trump. You play low and declarer inserts the Ten for partner's Jack. Partner also knows you don't have any ♦s left so he'll play his lowest remaining ♦ to show a ♣ suit preference. You can ruff with the 8, return a ♣ to partner's Ace who returns another ♦ (to promote his ♠K if you have the Q) which you ruff with the Ace. Even better!

Only a dummy reversal for the defenders gets this contract down. ♦A, ♣
A and 4 ♠ tricks is just enough.

Close one

Here's one from a club evening friday evening:

Dealer: North Vul: EW Scoring: MP	♠ x ♥ KJxxx ♦ QJxx ♣ Axx
♠ QT9x ♥ xxx ♦ KTxx ♣ xx		♠ A8xx ♥ Ax ♦ x ♣ KQTxxx
	♠ KJxx ♥ Qxx ♦ Axxx ♣ Jx

Playing f2f with my MOSCITO partner, he opens the bidding with 1♦ (showing 9-15HCP, 4+♥, can have a longer minor) and RHO intervenes 2♣. I have an easy takeout double, LHO passes and partner bids 2♦ showing 5♥-4♦ or 4♥-5♦. I bid 2♥ showing an invitational hand with 3♥ support (with weaker I would've just supported immediately, even with 4♠ - it's the system). LHO and partner pass, and RHO balances with 2♠. Now what? Well, I decided to just double, since I wasn't sure about a good fit. Partner decided to pass it in. I disagree with this decision, because we have a double fit and it seems logical that opps will also have a double fit. Playing 2 anything will probably be easy, and they also know where to find the ♠s. Even though we're NV vs V and may have an easy +200 it's too risky imo.

Anyway, the full auction:
1♦! - 2♣ - Dbl - pass
2♦ - pass - 2♥ - pass
pass - 2♠ - Dbl - pass
pass - pass

I start with ♦A and don't like what I see in dummy! My ♠J will be caught in a finesse and I just made ♦K high (and chance is that RHO doesn't even has one!). RHO seems still to have one, so I switch to ♥. RHO takes his Ace and plays a small ♠. It's imo quite clear that he wants to try to discard a ♥ on his ♦K so I take ♠K and play ♥Q and another ♥. RHO ruffs and plays ♣K which partner takes. He returns a ♣ which RHO takes with the Q catching my J and he plays for some reason small ♠ to his Queen!!! Because we cut off declarer's communication, I think he thought he could only make it if ♠s would split 3-2, which is virtually impossible. The winning line of play is to just run ♣ and make me ruff... Now he's completely screwed. He cashes ♦K and ruffs a ♦ with trump Ace and plays ♣T. This is what's left in dummy:
♠ T9
♦ T
And I still have:
♠ Jx
♦ x
Partner still holding ♦QJ we still have to make 2 tricks. If I discard my ♦ I'll only make 1 more trump trick, if I ruff with the Jack dummy discards his losing ♦, so the only way to make 2 tricks is to ruff low!

+200 was a nice top, and both me and my partner had a bit of excitement because the downtrick seemed very far away. All decisions turned out to be great: the ♥ switch was necessary to make declarer ruff, I had to take ♠K immediatly because the ♥ loser would've gone away, it was very good from partner to take ♣A immediately and continue ♣ destroying all communications, and I found a way in the end to make 2 tricks by letting declarer overruff.

Nicely defended

Here's one from competition this weekend (rotated for convenience):

Dealer: East Vul: None Scoring: imps	♠ QTx ♥ Axxx ♦ Txxx ♣ xx
♠ Kx ♥ KQTx ♦ Jxxx ♣ Jxx		♠ Jxxxxx ♥ Jx ♦ AQ ♣ ATx
	♠ Ax ♥ xxx ♦ Kxx ♣ KQxxx

The bidding is quick and simple: ♠ - all pass. 2♠ shows 12-14HCP with 5+♠.

I thought my best chances for defeating this contract were in leading a ♣ and either set up an extra trick or give partner a ruff. So I lead ♣K, partner shows an even number of ♣s and RHO takes the Ace. Declarer probably was afraid of a bad ♠ split or ♦K behind him, and decided to try to set up some ♥s first... I show an odd number of ♥s and partner takes the second ♥ with the Ace. He now returns ♣ to my Queen and I give partner a ruff, obviously showing ♦ prefference. Partner nicely returns ♦ and it's all over for declarer. He takes the Ace and plays a low ♠ to the K. I now know that he held 5-6 ♠s, exactly 2 ♥s (why else would partner take the ♥A the 2nd and not the first or 3rd time), exactly 3 ♣s, so 2-3 ♦s. I close the screen and ask declarer more information about his opening: can it be balanced? He says they usually open 1NT with balanced hands, so now I know his exact distribution unless he gave false info: 6-2-2-3. The only chance of defeating this contract is by giving partner trump promotion by playing ♣ in a triple void. Before doing this however, I need to cash ♦K first, otherwise declarer just ruffs in dummy and can discard his losing ♦ from his hand.

2♠-1 is the result.

Declarer made the biggest error by being too pessimistic about trumps. Thanks to the ♣K lead he only has 1 ♣ loser, 1♦, 1♥ and shouldn't be that afraid of a ♣ ruff (it's probably the 3 card trump that will ruff), so he'll have maximum 2 ♠ losers for the contract.

A missed opportunity

Suppose you're playing with me and you hold the following hand:
♠ AKJT752
♥ A9
♦ 7
♣ 932

All vulnerable, your partner (= me) as dealer, imps scoring, the bidding goes:
pass - pass - 4♠ - 5♥
all pass

You may disagree with the 4♠ bid, but I like it.

I lead a ♦ and you take a look at following dummy:
♠ 83
♥ J8
♦ KQJ
♣ KJT765

Declarer wins with ♦J in dummy, and leads ♥J which you cover. Now the question arises: how can we defeat this contract? Imo there's a lot known about the entire hand.
- Your partner didn't lead ♠ which suggests he holds 2 or more (or 0, which is unlikely because declarer would hold 4♠ from the Q and wouldn't bid 5♥).
- He lead ♦, your short suit, which suggests that he's long in ♦, doesn't hold the Ace, but still wanted to give us a ruff.
- Declarer played ♥J, which suggests he holds either KQ or KT. Looking at the vulnerability, I'd rather give him KQ or even KQT, so there won't be another trump trick unless you can ruff.
So there are 2 suits left to try and reach partner for a ruff: ♠ and ♣. Looking at the auction and HCP alone, I think you shouldn't give partner ♣A. There's a lot more to say for ♠Q, since we think partner has 2+♠. Declarer can easily be singleton or void to explain his bidding. There's one more chance for success: partner having a void in either black suit.

So which suit do you play, and which card?

The key is in the lead: if partner played a high ♦, he says you can reach him with ♠, but if he lead a low ♦, he's asking for a ♣ return.

At the table, I held ♠Q96, declarer had a singleton. I lead a small ♦ instead of a high one, partner took ♥A immediatly but continued ♠K. After analysing this hand, I saw my error. Partner said he thought about a low ♠ at the table, but didn't do it because he hoped for another ♥ trick. I was glad he realised his argument for playing a high ♠ was wrong. We missed an opportunity to defeat 5♥, but I guess we learned from that mistake...

Defensive blunder

Lets talk about the following hand, might be a good lesson:

Dealer: South Vul: EW Scoring: imps	♠ - ♥ Q984 ♦ AT9754 ♣ AKQ
♠ KQ965 ♥ T3 ♦ 6 ♣ 86432		♠ AT72 ♥ A72 ♦ QJ83 ♣ J7
	♠ J843 ♥ KJ65 ♦ K2 ♣ T95

Suppose you are sitting in East. Your opponents had a bit of an agressive auction:
pass - pass - 1♦ - pass
1♥ - pass - 3♠ - pass
4♦ - pass - 4♠ - pass
5♥ - pass - 6♥ - Dbl
all pass

Partner leads ♠K, dummy ruffs with ♥4 and plays ♥Q.

First question: do you take your Ace or not? There's no real reason to take it. Playing low gives away a trick (double dummy), but you make it very hard on declarer to get to 11 tricks, since he can't draw another trump! I think most good players would hold it up once.

At the table East cashed ♥A, so we cash and have another decision to make.

The key now is to figure out what declarer needs to make his contract, and what dangers he'll have to cope with. It's clear that he'll need his ♦ length (which you control), and he'll also need to draw trumps at some time without us getting another chance to play some ♠s. To set up his ♦s, declarer will need ♣ entries (you only have 2) and 2 trumps to ruff. So it might be possible to lock up the hands.

There's another question that is probably very interesting: how many ♦s does declarer have? We can't know for sure, but it's probably 2-3 since most players don't cuebid partner's suit with a singleton. If he has 3, then you can probably give partner a ruff, but in that case you'll always have a ♦ trick so there's no need to play ♦. If he does have a singleton or void, he'll be totally ruined anyway (with stiff he needs to ruff 3 ♦s, so he'll need a 5 card trump).

So what do you continue?

It's necessary that you mess up declarer's plan. You suppose declarer has ♦Kx (which is the only dangerous one for us). He will be able to set up his ♦s only if he can draw your last trump when he's in dummy (since he'll need his other trumps to ruff ♦s), ready to cash his remaining ♦s. So there are 2 possibilities to mess that up:
- let declarer ruff a ♠: declarer will have to hope for a 3-3 split in ♦ now, which isn't the case (he'll need to draw trumps, and will only be able to ruff 1 more ♦, not 2)
- mess with the ♣ entries. You only have 2, you declarer will need 2 ♣s to get to dummy twice. Now that you'll ruff the 3rd ♣ he'll be down.

At the table, East played a ♥, which is imo the least useful continuation possible. Now my partner (I was sitting North) found a very nice line of play: ♦K, ♦A, ruff a ♦, ♣ to dummy, ruff another ♦, ♣ to dummy, draw the last ♥ and claim for contract.

If you visualize declarer's plan, you'll have 'double dummy vision' playing this hand.

The long run...

You hold:
♠ AQT3
♥ JT2
♦ K973
♣ 98

You were dealer, all green, imp scoring, we get a quick auction:
pass - 3♣ - pass - 3NT
all pass

Since you don't know how solid opponents are when they preempt, but can't take much risks, you decide to go for a semi agressive lead: a small ♦.

Dummy looks great for declarer:
♠ 65
♥ K
♦ 654
♣ AQJT432

Partner takes the Ace and returns ♦2 to your K. You're already glad you took these tricks, but the hand isn't over yet. You might've just given declarer some overtricks. The question is: what do you continue, and why?

Analysing this hand should get you on the right track to defeating this contract:
- ♣ is useless: ♥K is quite a high card, and you might as well set up declarer's suit.
- ♦ has no future left at all. Partner returned a small ♦ out of respect for your lead (you might have a great source of tricks). If he had anything in ♦, he would've returned a bigger card, so partner had ♦A2.
- ♥ is one of the more interesting suits: the K might be declarer's only entry to a bunch of ♣s, but you still need to find ♣K in partner's hand for this to be successful. So what if partner has the ♣K? He'll probably return a ♠ to your AQ to defeat the contract with ease. So the only question which remains is: what if declarer has ♣K? Then you really NEED to take some tricks very fast, or block declarer's suits (which is impossible). There are 3 ways of making tricks 'quickly': either find ♥A in partner's hand so he can return ♠, or just cash ♠s from the top (if partner has ♠K) or hope partner has ♠J and ♣K. Which brings us to the next possibility...
- ♠A is probably most interesting of all: you'll get a signal from partner. The only time this won't work is when partner has ♣K or ♥A.

So what's best? Imo the auction can help us here: the 3NT bidder will probably have a ♣ honour. Otherwise bidding 3NT is just suicide: he has to count on 6-7 ♣ tricks. This already makes ♠ vs ♥ 50-50.
What about ♥A or ♠K? One of the suits is definetly problematic for declarer because of our ♠ holding and dummy's ♥K. But I don't think there's a way to tell for sure, except declarer's sanity. He only has ♦QJT8, and he's quite poor in the Majors as well. Since opponents clearly preempt quite solid, you may expect quite a poor hand on your right.

If percentages don't give us an answer, all that's left is 'the long run':
- Lead a ♥ when partner has ♠K gives declarer 7♣+2♦+2♥ = 11 tricks.
- Lead ♠A when partner has ♥A gives declarer 7♣+2♦ and maybe ♠K = 9-10 tricks.

And if you're right:
- ♠ gives you 4 tricks, so 3NT-2
- ♥ gives you 2-4 ♠ tricks (depends if partner has the J or a 5 card), so 3NT-1/-2/-3. However, if partner has ♥A chance of ♠J (or a 5 card) has decreased significantly, so it's probably only 3NT-1.

In both situations ♠A is more successful in the long run.
You may wonder what happens if partner doesn't have either. Then the maximum you'll make is ♠A, so you might as well take it before opponents can discard dummy's ♠s on ♥A and ♦QJ.

On the actual deal you would've been lucky: partner had ♠K94 and could easily encourage ♠, whatever method you play.

One for the defense

Here's a nice hand from a few days ago:

Dealer: North Vul: NS Scoring: MP	♠ 6 ♥ T4 ♦ AT964 ♣ AT982
♠ K875 ♥ QJ86 ♦ J72 ♣ Q4		♠ AJ4 ♥ A753 ♦ KQ3 ♣ KJ3
	♠ QT932 ♥ K92 ♦ 85 ♣ 765

The bidding went:
1♠* - Dbl - pass - 2♥
pass - 2NT - pass - 3NT
all pass
(1♠ shows around 9-14HCP with 4+♦, and can contain longer ♣)
My RHO probably bid 2NT just to try to rightside the contract.

I was sitting South and had to lead. I generaly don't like agressive leads, and there was every sign not to on this particular hand.
- Partner will probably be short in ♠ and chances are big that I won't have an entry if I can setup my suit anyway.
- Leading ♥ from under Kxxx gives the entire show away.
- Declarer will probably have a double ♦ stop.

So I decided to lead a ♣, hoping to reach my partner's longest suit. We lead 1/3/5 and I thought my count would be important: I lead the ♣5. Partner nicely held up his Ace and declarer won with the J. Now ♦K was played and partner took it immediatly, gave the ♣ suit a second of thought and correctly played a low ♣ to keep communication. This only fails when I had ♣53, but you might still get your trick back later. So the communication was still open. Declarer won in dummy and finessed ♠ to my Q. I had an easy continuation, and partner did what we worked for: cash the ♣ tricks. Declarer discarded ♥ in his hand and in dummy, so partner returned a small ♥ to his Ace. Now declarer tried a ♠-♥ squeeze (or ♠ splitting 3-3) by cashing his ♦s. On the last ♦ I hold ♠T92 ♥K, and dummy still had ♠K87. I had to keep my ♠s since partner was all out (I already knew declarer had ♠A as well), so I discarded my ♥K. Lucky my partner had the ♥T, otherwise declarer's squeeze would've worked. -2 was a great result.

GIB's Double Dummy Solver says we can only make 5 tricks. Declarer messed up by keeping his ♦ communication. If he kept ♠K87 ♥QJ ♦J in dummy, he can easily take ♥A, play ♦ to the J, a ♠ back to his Ace, and the last ♦. NOW I'm squeezed in ♠ and ♥...

What lead with a 5-4 against NT?

Leads are one of the most difficult areas in bridge. You can see only 13 cards, every one of them can cause a disaster, and all you have for deciding which card you’ll play is an auction produced by your opponents which you can't trust. Some people even go so far to claim that the lead is a pure guess. I disagree completely! Imo for about 95% of the hands there's a clear indication what lead may be more successful than others. Sometimes there's a clue that you need an active or passive lead, or your partner showed you what to lead (or what not to lead by passing),...

There is however a figure that is still unsolved. Against NT contracts, especially 3NT, what suit is best to lead when you have a 5-4? Beginners learn to lead their longest suit, but we all know that beginners don't always learn to play the best bridge, they learn general rules. I know several people who really believe that in general, leading the 4 card suit is better, and I'm also one of them. When you have AKQJT-5432 it's obviously ridiculous, but in general with almost equal suits I've noticed that leading the 4 card suit usually gives a nice advantage over leading the 5 card suit. I've tested this already for a while, and got good results with it.

The strange thing is: it seldom loses. Leading a 5 card suit usually reaches partner's doubleton, and such suits usually split 4-2 in opponents' hands. So the length trick doesn't come in, and you give away a trick by playing the suit yourself. With the 4 card suit, you have more chance of reaching partner's 3 card suit, and he'll have lots of communication, even if the suit splits 4-2. Last friday was one of my latest successful experiment: I held Qx-Kxxxx-Kxxx-xx, the auction went (we were silent):
1♠ - 2♣
2NT - 3NT
I led a small ♦. Declarer had ♥Jxx opposite AQx in dummy, and ♦s split 3-3. 3NT was just made for a top, since everyone else led a ♥ and gave away 1 or 2 tricks.

Today I even did it with a 6-4, again with success! RHO had promised a stopper for my ♠AQ98xx suit, and my 4 card was ♦AJxx. Here I had a clear indication that my long suit wouldn’t be successful since partner also didn't ask for a ♠ lead after the cuebid, and we defeated 3NT with ease since partner had ♦Qxx in support and dummy came open with ♦Kx. :-)

I don’t have an archive on this, but I estimate about 3 out of 4 times it's a success when you use some common sense like I mentioned above. Perhaps we can get some proof when I can get someone to do some simulations on this (hint), but all the factors that are in play might make this quite difficult.

Keeping partner's entries

Here's a simple hand where you might make a huge mistake:

Dealer: West Vul: Both Scoring: imps	♠ 9643 ♥ A72 ♦ 94 ♣ KQJ3
♠ AT52 ♥ T983 ♦ AK8 ♣ T9		♠ KQ7 ♥ QJ6 ♦ J32 ♣ A642
	♠ J8 ♥ K54 ♦ QT765 ♣ 875

West plays 3NT after showing 13-14HCP and 4-5♥ (either balanced with 4-5♥ or unbalanced with exactly 4♥).

Looks like a simple hand, doesn't it? I (North) started of with ♣K-2-7-9 and ♣Q-A-5-T (we use udca carding, so you showed 3 ♣s. Now declarer plays ♥Q from the table, which you don't cover (only good when partner has ♥Ax) and it holds. You get the 7 from partner, which promisses only 1 card higher, and perhaps 1 lower as well. Now a small ♥ is played. Do you play the K?

I think you should because partner can only have 3♥s, and following is possible:
A7x - covering is mandatory. Partner with A7 would probably take ♥A immediatly
T7x - declarer would've played another suit and run the 9 from 98
97x - declarer will first cash ♥J and make the decision later weither or not to finesse the 9
87x - it doesn't matter, you'll always lose your ♥ trick

At the table, declarer played ♥J at trick 4, which made it a lot easier. Now my partner didn't have any reason to duck again, and we defeated the contract since partner could still reach me with ♥.