My hand: ♠ A K J 3 ♥ A K Q 4 ♦ 9 ♣ T 9 8 5
Three passes to me. I open 1 club. Partner responds 1 diamond which is alerted. Presumably this is because of playing Walsh as partner can't have a bad hand with a 4 card major. I don't know what I should do here but that's partly why I put Walsh on my card. I know with a worse hand I should bypass my 4 card majors and bid 1NT. Bidding 1 heart should show a distributional hand which I don't really have. I think 2NT is probably the right bid so I give it a try. Partner raises to 3.
After the bidding a sneak a peak at what the bids meant. Partner's 1 diamond is either 6+ points, 4 diamonds, and no 4 card major or 6-11 points, 5 or more diamonds, and no 4 card major, or 12+ points, 5 or more diamonds, and longer diamonds than hearts or spades.
My 2NT bid showed 17 points and 5 clubs or 18-19 points and no 4 card major. It was forcing no matter what. Looks like I probably should have bid 1 heart; I will have to replay and see what the bids mean.
West leads the 2 of spades.
North ♠ 9 6 ♥ T 5 ♦ Q 7 6 5 4 3 ♣ K Q 4 | ||
WEST ♠ 2 | ||
| SOUTH ♠ A K J 3 ♥ A K Q 4 ♦ 9 ♣ T 9 8 5 |
| West | North | East | South |
| Pass | Pass | Pass | 1♣ |
| Pass | 1♦1 | Pass | 2NT |
| Pass | 3NT | All Pass | |
| 1Walsh | |||
Hmm. I have 3 spades and 3 hearts. I can brute force 2 clubs. I don't have the entries to set anything up in diamonds. My 4th spade and my 4th heart are both terrible so I can't set them up with lucky layouts. I can get a 3rd club with Axx in West or with Jx in either hand which definitely seems like the way to go.
At any rate, 2-9-Q-A. I lead a low club. 5-3-K-A. East comes back with a spade. T-K-4-6.
So, now I can get my 3rd club trick by either dropping an initial Jx or by finessing West to pick up his Jxx. Any Jx is a third of all 4-2 splits (48.5%/3~=16%). Jxx in west is half of all 3-3 splits (35.5/2~=18%). I decide to finesse. T-2-4-J. East returns yet another spade. 8-J-5-3 of diamonds.
Now what? I can cash out for down 1. They have 3 more top tricks so I'm down whenever they get in, so I don't see anything better to do. Nothing funky happens. Down 1.
| NORTH ♠ 9 6 ♥ T 5 ♦ Q 7 6 5 4 3 ♣ K Q 4 | ||
| WEST ♠ 7 5 4 2 ♥ 8 7 6 ♦ A J 8 2 ♣ 3 2 | EAST ♠ Q T 8 ♥ J 9 3 2 ♦ K T ♣ A J 7 6 | |
| SOUTH ♠ A K J 3 ♥ A K Q 4 ♦ 9 ♣ T 9 8 5 |
He also disagrees with my play after cashing out. They had 4 winners and 3 cards left so I don't know what it mattered.
On the replay the auction goes a lot differently (they aren't playing Walsh, after all) but they still end up in 3NT after my hand bids clubs, hearts, and then a fourth suit forcing 2 spades.
The play differs as well. Declarer attacks diamonds when he gets in with the opening spade which sets up some easy diamond tricks for the defense. Giving up a tempo on clubs means he can't set them up in time. Down 2.
Nick: -100
Jack: -200
IMPs: +3 (-16 total)
He attacked diamonds? In what universe is that a good idea? Hur, lets set up a suit I can't possible cash even after I take my 3-4 losers.
ReplyDeleteYour method of setting up clubs has miscalculations. First off, if the split is Jxxx (x can be A) in either direction, you can only take 2 tricks. So we can assume that it is either a 3-3 split, or 4-Jx split. And of the 3-3 splits, AJx in east is impossible. So we have these splits that we can pick up:
ReplyDelete4-Jx (either direction)
Any 3-3, except xxx-AJx.
So your best play is actually to finesse the K in dummy. This will pick up everything except AJ in East. If the finesse holds (A oneside) we repeat the finesse. This will pick up jx offside and Axx-xxx.
If the finesse fails, since we cannot pick up AJx, we finesse for the J the 2nd time around. This will pick up Jx-xxxx and Jxx-Axx
To be fair, if Jxx-Axx ducks the A the first time, you're losing the 2nd trick too!
I'm not sure where I miscalculated. Is it how I can win in the first place or the actual odds after the first finesse failed?
ReplyDeleteI guess I threw out picking up Jxx-Axx, but you can't pick both it and Axx-Jxx up with the same line of play.
You can pick up Jxx-Axx so long as A covers the K of D on the first trick.
ReplyDeleteI say you didn't calculate correctly because your method fails to pick up stiff J offside, but does still manage to pick up Jx onside.
Why would he possibly cover? KQx is on board so he knows it's wrong to cover the vast, vast majority of the time and right to duck whenever his partner has Jxx. (Communication issues exist too, but since you're guaranteed a club entry regardless he probably wants you to take it now unless he desperately needs one himself.)
ReplyDeleteIf he ducks then you can't pick up both Axx-Jxx and Jxx-Axx.
Its not always right to duck. If he does duck, it gives you the opportunity to endplay him later. You could just need a club trick to cash out (and not lose enough diamonds). What you're doing is forcing him to decide on trick 2, what his optimal line of play is with no information from his partner. In fact, I'd say that most of the time (partner doesn't have exactly Jxx) its right to overtake and fire back out a spade. And even if partner has exactly Jxx, it could easily be right to fire back a spade. They could have 6 tricks in D (finessing your K), and your Kx of diamonds is looking very vulnerable.
ReplyDeleteWhat would you do if partner had the remaining spade tricks (with your finesse) and they proceed to take 6 diamond tricks, KC, S and H trick?
Dummy has precisely one entry, either the K or Q of clubs. How are they getting 6 diamond tricks? To pull that off declarer needs to have at least AJ2. He needs specifically all 3 of those cards, he can't get 6 diamonds without them.
ReplyDeleteIn order for us to set them we need 5 tricks total. Partner lead the 2 of spades, so we have at most 3 spade tricks and my A of clubs. If declarer has AJ2 of diamonds and the A of hearts we can't win. He has 9 tricks and we have 4 and there's nothing we can do about it. The only way we can cash out right now but lose if we don't is if partner has AQxx of hearts so we can take 4 hearts and the club but doesn't have the K of spades. So he chose to lead from (at best) J752 instead of AQxx.
Plausible? Sure. Worth playing for? No way, especially when you consider the other downsides. Winning the first trick not only allows declarer to pick up Jxx-Axx for 1 loser when he has no right to it also lets him have his club entry later after playing on diamonds if he needs help setting them up.
I don't see you getting endplayed, either. You'll always have a safe club exit after you win the second round.
You don't have a "safe" club exit. Leading clubs out of your hand costs your partner his club trick.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't good enough to get your tricks eventually. Keep in mind that the play will often force you to discard... if you duck, you can't pitch your club if you want to use it as an exit.
On the "needing AJx" of diamonds... if he didn't need to lead diamonds immediately (ie, AJx of diamonds) then why did he lead a club? If his only play is an extra club trick, then he would have played out other suits to develop a feel for the club suit.
What? How does leading clubs out of my hand cost partner his club trick when I win the second round? He's left with just J and I'm left with a small one.
ReplyDeleteI should point out on the actual hand my only play was to set up a club and there was no information for me to gain by playing the other suits because I couldn't afford to touch diamonds. I could cash one heart, I guess, but anything else and I'm down 2 just like Jack was.
And he doesn't need AJx. He needs AJ2 (or AJx2 or AJxx2) specifically. With board having 76543 he has to have the 2 as an entry to board if he wants 6 diamonds. He could also be playing West for the A of clubs giving him 2 board entries that way so he could be making this play without AJ2. East knows West doesn't have the A of clubs though, so he doesn't need to worry about it.
AJx is plenty in diamonds? He needs to swap to dummy, finesse your king, cash his high diamond, and lead low back to the Q. I think this is the more likely situation when he leads C since if I had an Ax or Jxx I'd just attack diamonds out of my hand.
ReplyDeleteBy leading clubs immediately, he almost certainly doesn't need the club entry later, so giving him the trick now is unlikely to be a benefit to you.
Yeah, you're right, AJx is good enough to get the 6 diamond tricks. Again, where does that get him? If he has the A of hearts he makes, but he makes when I hop as well. (He still has the club entry and can get his 6 diamonds, the club, the A of hearts and the A of spades he already won.) We can't set him because we have no fast tricks in hearts, clubs, or diamonds and have at most 3 spade tricks.
ReplyDeleteIf he has the K of spades he makes. We again have no fast tricks in clubs, diamonds, or spades. We could take 4 heart tricks here, but only when partner specifically has AQxx or better in hearts and we shift to hearts. (I built the hand this requires. West did lead a spade from Jxxx. East did shift to a heart, but he shifted to a low heart and therefore South had a heart stopper. Building the hand was very hard and I couldn't actually build a hand for South that made sense on the auction.)
I'm just having a lot of trouble building a deal where ducking the A of clubs hurts and it's easy to build one where hopping does. (Trade the J of clubs for the 6 of hearts, for example, and declarer makes if you hop and fails if you don't.) This may be easy because I have this deal already in front of me though.
Give your partner JTx of clubs. If you duck the finesse and you're forced to lead clubs, you only get 1 club trick. But you're guaranteed 2, so long as you overtake.
ReplyDelete