10.31.09
What Do You Call a 9-Card Suit?
I had an interesting hand today. The auction really should have been quite standard and probably was at virtually every table. The key difference at the various tables was probably the defense.
I picked up the following hand, with nobody vulnerable:
Kx x x KJ98xxxxx
Everyone probably opened this hand 5 clubs in first seat, and the hand was probably passed out. After all, there is an old bridge adage — what do you call a 9 card suit? – Trump!! A 5-level opener should generally be a hand with an 8-9 card minor and about 8 tricks in the hand, perhaps 9 if vulnerable, and less than opening values. The hand probably has little defensive value, if any. For those who play traditional gambling 3NT opening bids, the suit should not be a solid 8-card minor.
The hand above fits this definition. I held a 9-card broken minor suit (not a bad suit, but not solid) and a doubleton king on the side. The side king was of questionable defensive value. I looked at the hand and figured I had 1, possibly 2 club losers and possibly a spade loser. This amounted to approximately 8 tricks, so I opened 5 clubs. If my club suit was stronger, say KQJxxxxxx with a side king, I might have opened 1 club, but with the broken suit, 5 clubs was the right call.
The opening lead was the A of clubs. I will come back to the opening lead shortly. Dummy hits with the following hand:
ATx AKxx KQTxxx —
A very good dummy. My partner gave careful thought to raising me to 6C, but she trusted me to have about 8 tricks and a club suit with at least 1 loser in it. Therefore, in order to make 6C, I would have to either have the A of diamonds (which I should not have for the non-vulnerable 5C opening) or a diamond void (possible to have but impossible for her to rely on or to discover without committing us to 6 clubs). Her pass was clearly the correct bid. If she had the A of diamonds instead of the KQ, then she should raise to 6 clubs, hoping I only had 1 club loser.
Back to the opening lead. My LHO (left hand opponent) lead the A of clubs from the following hand:
Jxxxx Qxxx Jxx A
I might have the exact holdings in the majors off a little bit, but she did not hold the QJ in either major. In any case, the A of clubs is almost certainly the right lead. It is hard for her to know which major suit (or diamonds for that matter) is the best lead, but leading the A of clubs on this auction will rarely give away a trick and will give her the opportunity to look at dummy and find the best shift. Well, she looked at dummy and shifted to a low spade!!!! I nearly fell out of my chair!!! After that great opening lead and looking at dummy, she found one of the two suits that she could shift to and let me make the contract. Upon the spade shift, I won the A of spades in dummy, played the A and K of hearts, pitching my losing diamond on the second heart. I now trumped a diamond to get to my hand, played the K of clubs and found the bad news — the clubs were 3-1 and I had to lose the Q of clubs. So I made my contract.
Looking at dummy, if my LHO trusted me to have 8 or 9 clubs and probably no outside ace, she clearly should have switched to a diamond at trick 2. My RHO (right hand opponent) would now win her ace and eventually would get the Q of clubs (as I do not have enough transportation to set up a trump coup to capture the Q of clubs – with 9 clubs, I simply have too many clubs to use up in order to set up a trump coup).
About half the players were in 5C, making 5, and half went down 1 trick. Basically, if the opening lead was a major, the declarer can pitch away the diamond loser on the second heart before drawing trump, and therefore make the contract. No person on opening lead in their right mind would find the lead of a diamond from Jxx on this auction. However, if someone did lead a diamond at trick one, that person would defeat the contract. However, I believe the best lead was the A of clubs, followed by a diamond switch.
