Man or mouse? Concluded

Spring Nationals
Open Teams semi-final
Set one
Board 3
Dealer South
EW Vul

	NORTH KJ62 AK986 A A82
WEST A1093 7 7532 KQ65		EAST Q875 5 KQ94 10973
	SOUTH 4 QJ10432 J1086 J4

The question was you sit West and hear this auction:

West….North….East….South
……………………………Pass
Pass…..1H…….Pass…..4H
Pass…..6H…….All Pass

Question: Partner leads the DK, taken by declarer’s ace. Then ace and another trump to dummy and partner discards the S5, playing reverse count. I’m not sure why declarer did this as it must be wrong on principle to let the defenders make a possibly useful discard here. Still, there you are. You now have all weekend to make the decision about what you are going to do SMOOTHLY and in tempo on the spade off dummy at trick four. I’d prefer to give you one nanosecond to do that, but unfortunately it is out of my control.

Answer: Hinge ducked smoothly and Gumby tried the jack. One down. I expect it is hard to say declarer should have done anything else, is there? Even holding the ace of spades, the opening leader clearly had a natural diamond lead. And surely on pure odds the jack is right: half the time RHO will hold the queen and some of the rest of the time they won’t find a smooth duck.

Something completely different tomorrow. See you then.

Man or mouse? Continues.

	NORTH 86 A872 — AK109762
WEST AKQ5 4 AKQ109832 —		EAST J107 10953 J54 J84
	SOUTH 9432 KQJ6 76 Q53

The hand is from the Spring Nationals semifinal. In one room the West hand asked for specific aces with 4NT, North passed, East showed none and West signed off in 6D. Should this ambition to bid seven by West encourage North to bid on principle? Pauline Gumby thought not. +1370.

In the other room Simon Hinge thought nothing of trying his luck at the seven level, doubled and -500 for a swing to the eventual losers. All that rubber bridge, no doubt. Steels the nerves.

Thanks to Rainer for doing a simulation, see his comments under yesterday’s post.

I think we could call this a man nor mouse situation as well:

WEST A1093 7 7532 KQ65
	SOUTH 4 QJ10432 J1086 J4

You sit West:

West….North….East….South
……………………………Pass
Pass…..1H…….Pass…..4H
Pass…..6H…….All Pass

Partner leads the DK, taken by declarer’s ace. Then ace and another trump to dummy and partner discards the S5, playing reverse count. I’m not sure why declarer did this as it must be wrong on principle to let the defenders make a possibly useful discard here. Still, there you are. You now have all weekend to make the decision about what you are going to do SMOOTHLY and in tempo on the spade off dummy at trick four. I’d prefer to give you one nanosecond to do that, but unfortunately it is out of my control.

See you Monday.

Lightner double in trouble again. Denouement.

The question was:

AJ1087
—
K43
J8742

West….North….East….South
………..2D*……Pass….2H**
2S…….2NT……4S…….5D
Pass….6D……..Dble?!…All Pass

*2D=weak major or 2NT opening.
**2H=pass or correct

So, okay, you’ve lightner doubled 6D. You are on lead. What’s it to be?

Victorian State Pairs Final
Bd 21
Dealer North
NS Vul

	NORTH K9 AQJ62 AQJ A96
WEST Q65432 10985 2 K10		EAST AJ1087 — K43 J8742
	SOUTH — K743 1098765 Q53

Well, I got it wrong: ace of spades. As it is, because partner happens to have the club ten, a club is okay. I don’t see, however, why a diamond isn’t a serious candidate. If, worst case scenario you are then thrown in with your king, are you any worse off? In retrospect, however, I have another idea about this hand.

I think that Bill (see yesterday’s comments) must be right unless your partner is a psychopath. Dummy must be void in spades as otherwise your partner has queen empty fifth for their overcall. Given that you know you hold a trick, you should lead a low spade. And, should it transpire that your partner is a psychopath, everybody following as declarer picks himself up off the floor in order to win his king, maybe this is a lesson that even a psychopath might heed. It’s his fault this has happened, not yours.

Lightner double in trouble again

There are lots of ways a lightner double can get into trouble.

(1) It is right to lead the suit you know partner will lead if you say nothing
(2) The lightner double succeeds in partner getting off to the right lead, but it is a case of the operation succeeding and the patient dying. Not that the lightner double was ineffectual because the contract was always cold – that’s a calculated risk – but that the contract can only make if partner gets off to the lead you are hoping he finds.
(3) And then there is….

AJ1087
—
K43
J8742

West….North….East….South
………..2D*……Pass….2H**
2S…….2NT……4S…….5D
Pass….6D……..Dble?!…All Pass

*2D=weak major or 2NT opening.
**2H=pass or correct

So, okay, you’ve lightner doubled 6D. You are on lead. What’s it to be?

A lot rides on this…continued.

The question is this.

Sitting West you pick up:

2
10765
QJ85
AJ108

West….North….East….South
…………………………..1S
Pass…..4NT…..5C……..Pass (one keycard)
6C……..6S…….Dble…..All Pass

What do you lead?

To set the scene. As Khokan so correctly points out, it is the round of 16 in the NOT. In 2002, to be precise. At my table, East didn’t bid over 4NT and West began with the wrong red suit, even though the auction surely demanded the ace of clubs. Plus 980.

At the other table, the auction above ensued and the opening leader guessed the wrong red suit…thirteen tricks, doubled to boot. This cost us the round of eight and it reversed the result of at least one other match. Ouch.

It can all be so nicely reasoned, however, as you can see from yesterday’s comments. Ace of clubs should be standing up and then you won’t have to guess at all. If you didn’t think of the ace of clubs, then it makes far more sense to try the weak red suit as the stronger one is more likely to be a trick. Perhaps also because it is more likely that the opponents are bidding on with a good suit.

Indeed, this is the layout:

	NORTH AK65 AKQJ93 43 4
WEST 2 10765 QJ85 AJ108		EAST 8 — 109762 KQ97532
	SOUTH QJ109743 842 AK 6

See you tomorrow.

A lot rides on this.

Sitting West you pick up:

2
10765
QJ85
AJ108

West….North….East….South
…………………………..1S
Pass…..4NT…..5C……..Pass (one keycard)
6C……..6S…….Dble…..All Pass

What do you lead? I’m suppressing comments for now….look forward to everybody’s thoughts!

Be declarer for a change….continued

Double Bay
$10 game

	NORTH J83 A1083 KQ K974
WEST Q1097654 2 54 J52		EAST 2 Q964 AJ32 AQ83
	SOUTH AK KJ75 109876 106

West……………….North………East……..South
David Conway……..??………….Chua……..Marek Borewicz
Pass………………..1C…………1H………….2NT
Pass………………..3NT……….All Pass

After a spade lead to the ace and a diamond to RHO’s ace, the CQ came back and the question was whether to win or duck….Ben was the only one to answer, he got it right and his special prize is….to be guest blogger!! Well, either that or it was because he speculated on the strength of RHO….

Thanks Ben:

Cathy has been overcome by a fit of modesty, and looking at what she did and how well she went, I can see why.

Cathy must have been feeling particularly sexy that fine day in Double Bay. First she overcalled 1H with quite the moth-eaten 4 card suit, a suit that many of us wouldn’t even open, let alone overcall. Then she found the only card with any potential to shoot the contract – the CQ.

Let’s sit in Cathy’s seat for a moment. Logically, the club suit is the right suit to attack, and it’s right to attack. Partner didn’t lead hearts, so the actual heart layout is no surprise. Declarer is going after diamonds, and our pips are completely useless. All up, it looks like declarer is dangerously close to making with red suit tricks. That means we should be thinking attack, and the only suit left to attack is clubs.

But how to attack? The CQ was a very nice card. Partner can barely have a useful card left. The useful possibilities in clubs are J10 tight (switch a low club) and Jxx (with or without the 10 – switch to the CQ). Clearly Jxx is much more likely than J10 tight, so CQ switch it is.

Declarer, suspicious but unsure of the layout, took the CK, knocked out the DJ soon after, and was rapidly consigned to defeat as Cathy and her partner cashed up the club suit.

The key moment only took a smidge over 100 words to describe, but it’s nowhere near that easy at the table. Kudos to Cathy and I hope she enjoyed a very pleasant dinner on the proceeds.

Is GIB cheating?

While I was eating lunch today I intended to read an old article about four vs five card majors. To my surprise the old magazine – a 1999 IPBM – opened up at, ahem, something I’d written and completely forgotten about. It seemed so relevant to a lively debate we had a couple of months ago here that I thought it was worth reprinting. It goes like this….

Whenever a North American wishes to charge the Italian Blue Team with cheating this hand looms:

	NORTH A107532 K4 KQ K43
WEST Q9 Q10875 J9542 10		EAST J84 9 A10763 A986
	SOUTH K6 AJ632 8 QJ752

As many will recall, It was East on lead both times to 4S. Kaplan led the pedestrian heart, dummy having 2-over-1ed in that suit. Pabis-Ticci began with the ace of clubs. Why?

According to John Swanson, the latest American to come out with his suspicions regarding the Blue Team, pabis-Ticci was asked later ‘why this lead?’ He answered that it was because ‘Arthur Robinson had led the CA to defeat a partscore in an earlier session and he thought it would be nice to ‘hoist him by his own petard’. There you have it. The logic by which an eight times world champion resolves difficult lead decision.’

Swanson doesn’t like the logic. To him it is sufficient to assume that something nefarious is going on. I like Pabis-Ticci’s answer. It shows stle. It is as good a way as any to solve a dilemma. And it has the nice psychological advantage – if it works – of being , as happened in practice, extremely irritating to the opposition. Not, in any case, that his answer need be true…Is Pabis-Ticci supposed to give bridge lessons to his opposition?

Here the point is that Tim Bourke, noted Australian analyst, decided to give the lead problem to GIB. And, guess what? It chose the ace of clubs. Does that mean GIB is cheating?! Later Tim gave the problem to GIB a couple more times and it led (1) a heart and (2) a diamond. Does this mean GIB is random? Or that it is a difficult lead problem?

Finally Tim did a simulation of 120 hands where East is on lead to the auction at Pabis-Ticci’s table. His conclusions were:

(1) Major suit leads were unsuccessful.
(2) The ace of clubs and the ace of diamonds each worked seven times.
(3) There were three hands where either would work.

By the way, after Swanson’s autobiography, aka an anti-Italian diatribe, came out, I wrote an article which I submitted to Bridge World pointing out not only the absurdity of the logic of some of Swanson’s claims, such as on this hand – really, the idea that the Italians should have to teach the Americans how to play is preposterous – but also pointing out that once or twice he actually has his facts wrong. For example he gives an auction to a slam and then claims that the Italian opening lead to it was the result of cheating (what else?) whereas in fact the auction, if you look at the official record of the championship, was a different auction. The editor refused to publish the article. Unfortunately I no longer have it or I’d pop it up here as well.

NZ Playoff…the grandslam

Michael Ware’s NZ Bridge article is presented as a group of problems….and I, for one, am not on the NZ team this year!

But this one I only got moderately ‘wrong’….unlike some of the others where I wasn’t in the same ball park.

	NORTH Q10652 863 109 Q83
WEST 874 9 AKJ876542 —		EAST A3 AQ7 Q3 A97642
	SOUTH KJ9 KJ10542 — KJ105

At one table: 5D P 6D Dble. At the other: 5D P 7D Dble.

My thoughts were that if it was a cashing trick running away it would be in your long suit, so lead spades as the tempo might be most important there. Also, given that dummy is likely to have a source of tricks, it isn’t going to be in spades.

If Burrows-Livingston had made 7D I guess you’d say they got lucky. Their chances of doing so are all to do with the lead….

I’ll quote Michael’s analysis:

On a spade or diamond lead, it needs diamonds 1-1 (52%) and clubs 4-3 (62%) ie 32% or the heart hook (50%) – A total of 68%. On a Club lead you are looking good – clubs 4-3 (62%) or even 5-2 (30%) if diamonds are 1-1. A total of 78%. A heart lead though means you have to Hook at trick 1. ie 50%. There aren’t really any squeeze chances.

So it was my lead. I took partner’s double to mean “lead something clever” but I couldn’t think of anything. It put me off a spade lead, but in the end I couldn’t see how a trump could be wrong. I wasn’t really considering the disastrous club lead.

NZ Playoff continued

NZ Playoff
Session 4
Board 16
Dealer West
Vul EW

	NORTH J7 108752 A84 432
WEST K3 AK6 KJ9 KQ987		EAST 10642 J9 1052 AJ105
	SOUTH AQ985 Q43 Q763 6

West…….North…….East…..South
Bach…….Stout…….Cornell…..Miller
Burrows…Ware……..L/ston….Whibley
2C……….Pass………2S………Dble (in one room and not the other)
2NT…….Pass……….3NT….All Pass

In fact the opening bid at one table was 2C and at the other 2D, but to the same effect. Over 2S one South doubled and the other didn’t. Of course North led longest and strongest in the room with no double and declarer had no issues making.

In the other room the spade lead forces declarer to guess what to do. Having observed yesterday that although the point of the opening bid is partly to stop lousy overcalls, notice that in this case a lead-directing bid was still possible. Further, it is interesting to consider the fact that if South had instead been able to overcall, one might feel that the play is less than a guess.

Burrows in this case decided to play South for the card he might have held if he had been able to overcall – the diamond ace – and therefore went down for a game swing to the eventual winners.

Having read the whole of Ware’s report, I do have to confess that I would not be playing on the NZ team if these were the things I had to get right. I got most of them wrong.

Here’s one more.

Sitting North you hold:

Q10652
863
109
Q83

West…..North…..East…..South
5D……..Pass…….7D…….Double
All Pass

So, what do you lead for quite a large swing….