One more time on the hand from the Sao Paulo Venice Cup

I try to be fair so when I got a long comment (and I do love comments, really) I thought I would revisit the hand for the very last time in the light of Nick Krnjevic comments.  Let’s start with the bidding.

 Board 20. Dealer West. All Vulnerable.

	♠ A 7 5 3 ♥ K 6 A 5 3 ♣ A K 3 2
♠ 8 ♥ Q J 10 9 4 4 ♣ Q J 10 8 7 4		♠ Q J 9 6 ♥ 8 5 2 K 10 9 8 7 6 ♣ –
	♠ K 10 4 2 ♥ A 7 3  Q J 2 ♣ 9 6 5

 

THe bidding in the Open Room was as follows

West: Liu	North: McCallum	East: Wang	South: Baker
pass	1♣	2	Dbl
pass	3	pass	3NT
all pass

 

McCallum opened a natural club and Wang made a preemptive jump overcall.   To some extent bidding is a matter of style.  While I didn’t comment it at the time Wang’s 2 overcall is a matter of taste.  Granted she has good diamond (and spade) spots but I personally would expect more playing strength from a vulnerable partner.  On the positive side it does take away a fair bit of space from North-South.  On the negative side it does lose the spade suit if it belongs to your side. 

I didn’t and don’t object to the negative double.  In fact I previously said it was a sensible call.  I am not at all sure what I would have bid on the South hand.  The problem with a negative double in this position is that the auction may time out badly in terms of finding the spade contract although it might have the opposite effect and induce part to bid spades.

North, McCallum has to pick between bidding spades or suggesting notrump as a contract.  There is an argument for bidding 3♠ on the North hand, letting partner try 3NT with an inappropriate hand. 

I see bidding as a series of decisions that each player has to make.  Each choice may set things on a better path or a worse path but it is sometimes hard to tell which one will work out better.  Here three of the players had decisions to make.  I don’t think anybody did anything wrong.  One could discuss their choices and argue (like a bidding panel) about which one was a bit better.

But in summary, as it turned out North-South got to the superior contract and Lynn made a good choice as did Karen.

So now Karen and Lynn have arrived in 3NT and it is up to Baker to make the hand and win a bunch of imps.

Baker got a heart lead and ducked it in both hands winning the second heart.  It does seem from the lead like West has length in hearts.   What now? 

This is what Lynn did

After winning the heart in dummy she led a diamond from dummy — incorrectly attacking the entry to the safe hand, since the diamond finesse would always lose to East, not West.  East won and cleared hearts.  Now Lynn cashing the ♠K in the hope that spades split 2-3 and she might be able to lose a spade to East.

Here is Nick’s suggestion based on Lynn’s line

l agree that there was a better line available than the one Lynn B. chose. Having said that, from where I sit it seems that Lynn B.’s line may well have had better chances of success than the one that you and Mark H. suggest (the ‘’safety play’of Ace and a spade at tricks 3 and 4).

Your article implies that declarer should have played on spades in the manner Mark suggests because LHO was “known to have the heart length”.

That seems a bit unfair. Lynn’s RHO was marked with *at least* 6Ds and likely had 3 hearts given (a) LHO’s initial pass and (b) RHO’s play to the first 2 heart tricks.

Since RHO had stuck her neck out, both red, opposite a passed hand partner, with a moth-eaten diamond suit and apparently 3 small hearts, she was quite unlikely to be 2-3-6-2.

If RHO was 1-3-6-3 or 1-3-7-2 she might well be inclined to stick her neck out to disrupt her opps undisclosed spade fit. It’s not so clear that she’d be in a hurry to bid if she was 3-3-6-1.

More importantly, from Lynn’s perspective RHO had very little reason to pre-empt holding 4-3-6-0 since RHO would want her opps to have all the bidding room necessary to find their badly-breaking spade fit (the open room result shows why).

So there were some fairly strong inferences that RHO had black-suit shortness, quite likely in the spade suit.

If so, the line suggested by Horton/Lee (playing A and a spade) seems ill-conceived. When declarer makes the “book” safety play of A and a spade, LHO, holding four spades including the QJ(spot), simply wins cheaply and continues the suit, breaking up the communication for the black suit squeeze.

If I were using this deal in a declarer play course I would use it to illustrate the idea of losing first to the danger hand and then taking a play to the safe hand.  What I said in the blog was that you should play spades before diamonds.  As Nick suggested in his commented West clearly had heart length, not East.  The textbook “safety play” is to lose the first trick to the danger hand.  Even if spades break evenly after you played diamonds its may be completely impossible to lose the spade trick to East however you play the suit.  You know that the diamond finesse will only lose to East even if East has psyched.  The main point therefore is to play diamonds first. 

Having made that decision what is the best way to play spades for one loser?  If spades split 3-2 you can always make 3 spade tricks and you really don’t care who wins the spade.  If spades break 4-1 then your only real choice is to eventually play a spade to the ♠10.  The next question becomes whether to play the ♠A first or not.  The ♠A wins if West has the ♠Q or ♠J alone.  The only reason that it might be right NOT to play the ♠A first is that you might reduce your squeeze chances if West is 4-5-0-4 or has the QJ10 in clubs with four spades.  Cashing the ♠A may increase your chance in other ways.  For example if you play the ♠A and then another and you see that West has none you can try ducking a club to West which works on some hands where the clubs are 3-3.

But in any case the main and critical point about the deal is not who to play for three spades and who to play for two spades but which suit to play first.  Once you have made that mistake I still don’t understand the point of playing the ♠K first. 

If you want to duck a spade to East just do it.  Let’s say you mispull and play a diamond at trick two.  East wins and plays back back a heart.  At this point if your goal is to duck a spade to East you can simply play a spade from hand and try.  If West plays a high spot you win the ♠A and play another one.  If East plays the highest outstanding spade you duck.  If not you play the ♠K and another and hope.  Playing the ♠A and another as suggested by me, Mark, Barry Rigel and a variety of other experts on the panel was not a textbook play.  It is not even an important play.  But it is the normal play at trick three.

I do appreciate your gallant defense of the damsel and since I have been having fun with quotes from the AFI top 100 movie quote list here’s yours

""Listen to me, mister. You’re my knight in shining armor. Don’t you forget it. You’re going to get back on that horse, and I’m going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we’re gonna go, go, go!" from On Golden Pond, a movie I rather enjoyed.