09.25.09
What Do I Pitch?
First, I would like to apologize for my extended absence. My original intent was to write an article almost daily. I got sick for about a week, let the blog go, and never got back to it. Well, I’m baaaaaaack!!!
Today, I had a hand that had some interesting bidding issues, which I will discuss. The play and defense should have been routine and the board should have been flat; however, the defenders made a fatal error.
First, the auction went as follows:
North East South West
2C Pass 2D Pass
2NT Pass 3C Pass
3D Pass 3NT Pass
4NT Pass 6NT All Pass
The 2C was, of course, artificial and forcing, showing either 22+ HCP or 8 1/2 or 9 tricks or better.
2D was a positive response, promising an A, K or 2 Q’s.
2NT showed 22+ HCP (no upper limit – I will talk about this more later)
3C was Puppet Stayman, asking for a 4- or 5-card major.
3D denied a 5-card major but promised at least 1 4-card major
3NT was to play.
4NT said “Partner, I have something extra here, either a long suit as a source of tricks or extra values, probably 24/25+ HCP, do you have an excuse to go to 6NT?” (essentially, a quantitative raise).
6NT was to play, accepting the invitation.
When I show the full deal below, I will explain the pluses, minuses, and alternatives of this auction. First, I want to focus on the play of the hand.
East led J of clubs and dummy came down with the following hand:
QJ52 T73 954 AK4
(Yes, South’s 3NT call was much too conservative).
West holds the following cards:
874 QJ6 J86 9753
Before any other card is played, what are the key cards in West’s hand likely to be? Probably the QJ of hearts and perhaps, only perhaps, the 9 of clubs.
The play proceeds as follows:
Declarer ducks the club to his hand and wins it with the Q. Declarer then plays 4 rounds of spades starting with the AK in his hand and ending up with the QJ in dummy. Declarer had 4 spades, as did dummy. West must discard once on the spades, so a diamond discard probably won’t hurt. A club discard is also possible, but, just in case, save the club for now. East discarded 2 diamonds on the spades. Declarer now plays the AKQ of diamonds from his hand with East discarding 2 hearts on the last two spades, and West must now discard on the Q of diamonds. East threw a heart. West knows that declarer has started with 4 spades and 3 diamonds, if she has been counting. This means that North either is 3-3 in hearts and clubs, 4-2 in hearts and clubs, or 4-2 in clubs and hearts. If North has 4 clubs, North can pick up West’s 9 of clubs by finessing if necessary (it means that East led the J from JT or Jx doubleton. If North started with 3 clubs, it does not help West to protect clubs because the 9 will never be good, and if North started with 2 clubs, the 9 will never be good. Therefore, West should discard a club. At the table, West discarded the 6 of hearts. Declarer now played a club to the dummy and the last club, discarding a heart. East and West both followed to the clubs. Dummy was left with the T73 of hearts, while west held the QJ of hearts and the 9 of clubs. Declarer now led a heart to the A and then played the K. All the opponents’ hearts fell and North’s last heart was good. In this case, West had the information necessary to keep declarer from making 7NT. West should have worked out that the club was not necessary to protect and should have protected her hearts.
The full deal was as follows:
North:
AKT9
AK82
AKQ
Q8
West East
874 63
QJ6 954
J86 T732
9753 JT62
South
QJ52
T73
954
AK4
This hand highlights the usefulness of Kokish relays over 2C openings, but that is the subject of another article. Playing Kokish, a series of relay bids would be used after the 2D response to show that North had the big 25-27 HCP hand. My partner and I are going to start using Kokish, probably the next time we play.
Using the methods that we had, there were flaws in the process. The first several bids were correct on each side:
2C – 2D
2NT- 3C
3D -
Partner, with a 4333 hand, decided not to look for the 4-4 fit. She felt that if I had a 5-card major, the major might be better. I can accept that decision. However, 3NT is a gross underbid. She has 10 HCP and I have at least 22 HCP. She needs to make an invitational call, probably 4NT, after which I will bid 6NT. A better action on her part would be to bid 3H after my 3D bid, showing 4 spades and denying 4 hearts. With my extra values, I will bid 3S (with a minimum of 22 HCP, I would jump to 4S – I want to save bidding room with the stronger hand). Now she can bid 5NT, which says partner, pick your slam. Now, I can decide between 6NT or 6S. If I had 27+ HCP, I would probably opt for the grand slam.
In any case, we found our slam, and the opponents let us make an overtrick.
Well, that’s all for now folks. Have a good night.
