Lessons with Kathie

It was quite an interesting day here.  We all watched the swearing in of Barack Obama.  I think in some way this inauguration and that moment was a bit like the time when those of us who were around then all watched the landing of a man on the moon.  Okay this wasn’t quite as spectacular as that but it had that feeling of being an important moment. 

Well back to bridge reality.  Kathie and I played together today on BBO.  My plan was to try to talk about overcalls.  The way we have our sessions when we play a game is to play about an hour and then spend about 1/2 an hour discussing the deals.  I highlight interesting ideas and issues.  Today my plan was to talk about overcalls but that wasn’t one of the highlights.  I will probably blog some ideas about overcalls on Mastering Bridge tomorrow.

I think the most interesting play hand was this one.  Kathy and I spent a while talking about it but I don’t think I explained it as well as I should have.  You have arrived in the rather ambitious contract of 4♥ and you get a diamond lead.  How should you play the hand?

 

♠ 64

♥ 984

◊ QJ2

♣ K10654

 

♠ A54

♥ AJ653

◊ AK3

♣ J8

It appears that you have at least one spade and one club loser as well as two likely heart losers. 

Playing on the club suit early doesn’t seem to help much if the opponents defend correctly.

The line I suggested to Kathie was this one: 

Assume that you can pick up hearts for one loser and hold your club losers to one.  Duck a spade.  You will eventually trump a spade from dummy and play for a friendly trump suit like K10, Q10 or KQ onside.   This is where it got a bit hairy as I was explaining it. 

If you end up ruffing a spade in dummy before playing trumps you have two problems.  You set up the risk of a promotion and you give up an entry you need later.

So after you duck the spade you win the return and need to make a heart play.  You cross to dummy with a diamond and play a small heart.  If you see the a spot card or the 10 then you have an easy play of the ♥J, hoping that the defender has K10, Q10 or KQx.

But what if you see a heart honor on your right?  You don’t have to worry about a singleton honor since you can’t make it then.  But it could be KQ alone or KQx or even KQ10.  You can handle all those cases by ducking the heart honor, winning the return.  At this point you can trump a spade and play another heart with the plan of finessing the ♥J if you see a little one now.

But I see a catch: what if RHO puts up a trump honor from K10 or Q10 doubleton?  How will you know?  Now the winning play is to win the trump ace, ruff a spade and play the jack back.   Okay I know this play isn’t likely at this level.  I would like to think that I would have made that play if I had been defending with that holding.  With the 98x in dummy (and knowing Kathie has at least two trump) I am not sure it can be wrong.

Do you see a better plan?  I looked at some lines that involve playing clubs but they seem to require more than this one.  On the actual deal many plays will work but not the one that happened at our table.  Here is the deal.

	♠ 64
	♥ 984
	◊ QJ2
Kathie	♣ K10654	Linda
♠ K92		♠ QJ1087
♥ 1072		♥ KQ
◊ 1084		◊ 9765
♣ AQ32		♣ 97
	♠ A54
	♥ AJ653
	◊ AK3
	♣ J8

Our declarer play ace and another spade.  I played the ♠Q on the first spade from dummy and then the  ♠ 7 and when Kathie won the king she made a terrific play of the third spade which declarer had to trump.  Now when I got in on my heart honor I was able to promote Kathie’s ♥10 by playing a fourth spade. 

Anyway, if you read this Kathie you can see why it is often good to duck when you want a ruff from a holding like Axx opposite xx rather than make the seemingly natural play of ace and one.  You keep control of the suit.