Playing Against Isabelle and Sondra

Colin and I were practicing against Isabelle and Sondra last night on BBO.  We will be playing again in two weeks, Sunday at 7PM EST.  They are a very good partnership and very exciting and Colin is a fine player so I think the games should be a lot of fun to play and to watch if you feel inclined.  We had some interesting deals last night.   Colin and I did pretty well on this deal.  Colin held

Q864 AJ97 KQJ54 –

We are playing strong club with four card majors so when I opened 1 I only promised four of them and I could have a longer minor.  I was limited to 15 HCP.  Isabelle at favorable colors bid 3 and it was Colin’s turn.  He decided that he had a hand worth a slam try.  He had controls in every suit and a potential source of tricks.  Even though he knows our side can have at most 27 HCP and that we might only have an eight card fit.  Do you like his decision?  I do.  I bid 4NT and now Colin had his second decision, should he show the club void.  He does this by bidding 6 which shows 1 or 3 keycards and a club void.  This is a pretty good description but it does have the disadvantage of forcing us to slam.  I think he is right to show the club void.  I held a hand that could have opened 1

AK72 2 A73 A10963

This is a borderline hand in our system but with some many controls the book bid is 1.  I am far from an expert in forcing club but at favorable vulnerability I wanted to get my suits in.  If I start 1 and Isabelle bids 3 I think we will have more difficulty in the subsequent auction.  Colin and I did have a discussion about it afterward and we did agree that the correct bid is a forcing club.  Without interference we will be easily be able to get to the spade slam, still…  What do you think?

I did not try for the grand slam, although Colin is unlimited because the club void made my hand worse and I was concerned about the trump suit.  So here I was in 6 on the lead of the K.  I won the A as Sondra followed with the 6.

	Q864 AJ97 KQJ54 –
	AK72 2 A73 A10963

If everything breaks the hand is a claimer.  But on this auction it was likely that things were not breaking.  On the good side I had no top losers and the only clear loser I might have is in the trump suit.  So this is a hand about tricks.  It seemed to me that if I played this hand on a dummy reversal and ruffed two hearts in hand I would be well positioned.  This would give me presumably five diamond tricks, six spade tricks, a club and a heart if everything broke perfectly.  But if Sondra had four spades this line would still work.

So this is what I did.  I ruffed a heart and Sondra showed out pitching a club.  I played the A and both followed low, I cashed the A and played one round of trump as both followed low and I led a diamond towards dummy.  Isabelle now had a choice.  This was the whole deal.

	Colin Q864 AJ97 KQJ54 –
Isabelle 103 KQ108543 – 8742		Sondra J95 6 109862 KQJ5
	Linda AK72 2 A73 A10963

If she ruffs, as she did I and returns a heart I can cash the second trump, umblock diamonds and claim.  Suppose she doesn’t ruff.  The very best way to play the hand is to play a trump from dummy.  In the unlikely event that Isabelle is 1-7-0-5 and shows out I can ruff a club in dummy and then play all my diamonds ruffing the last diamond in hand.  Sondra gets her trump at trick thirteen.

In fact on the lie of the cards most things work.  If you do draw three rounds of trump then you can still make the hand on a squeeze.  Suppose you play a diamond winning in dummy and then concede a heart when you see that the diamonds are not breaking and as the cards lie you have a simple squeeze on Sondra.  If you give Isabelle any top club the double squeeze does not work this way because you don’t have an entry to the common threat, clubs.

Many lines work on this deal but playing three rounds of trump is definitely the worst of them.  Bidding and making the slam was worth 13.3 imps at imp pairs.

Here is one other deal where I thought Sondra did quite a good job on defense.  The auction started with 1 strong by Colin, I showed a positive with five spades and Colin showed a balanced hand with 17-19 HCP.  Sondra made a natural diamond lead and this is what she saw

	Linda AK863 1076 42 Q104
Sondra 1097 QJ3 A10976 96

Isabelle played the J and Colin won the Q.  Colin played the 4 to the A and Isabelle followed with the 5.  Playing reverse Smith a high spade would suggest you don’t like diamonds.  Now Colin ducked a heart to your Q.  What do you do?  Sondra played a club.  Isabelle won the A and returned the 5 as you took Colin’s 8 with your J.  Sondra now correctly worked out that unless the diamonds cashed Colin would have nine tricks and she laid down the top diamond.  When Colin’s K came down she had defeated the contract two tricks.  Well done.  Here is the whole hand

	Linda AK863 1076 42 Q104
Sondra 1097 QJ3 A10976 96		Isabelle Q52 42 J53 A8732
	Colin J4 AK985 KQ8 KJ5

Obviously 4 is the better contract and Colin might have shown his five card heart suit.  But he liked his hand for notrump.  He might have won the K which would have made it a touch harder for Sondra to figure out the diamond situation.