Interesting Play Problem

This hand comes to us courtesy of my friend Greg. You hold:

Jxx AKJxxxx J xx

You open 3H and play it there. The opening lead is the spade 9, and dummy hits with:

Kxx x Kxxxxx Axx

You duck in dummy and RHO plays low. What's going on here? What does LHO have? Plan your play.

Greg made some intelligent deductions on this hand and was able to score a very good board here. I'll let him tell the rest of the story in the comments.

Thanks, Greg.

Play problem

You're playing IMPS, and the auction has gone:

West	North	East	South
			1NT
2♠	2NT	p	3♣
p	3NT	p	p
p

1NT was 15-17, and 2S was natural. 2NT was lebensohl - it could have been lots of different handtypes, but after your forced 3C call, partner's 3NT bid revealed a raise to 3NT with a spade stopper.

LHO leads the king of spades, and you see:

♠ A75 ♥ 742 ♦ AQ432 ♣ 98

♠ J2 ♥ AT3 ♦ K986 ♣ AK54

What's your plan here?

First thing's first: Count your tricks. Ace of spades, ace of hearts, ace-king of clubs, and five diamonds add up to the nine tricks you need for 3NT. Great!

Next: Are there any problems that might arise? There's a big one, if you're not careful! Take a closer look at the diamond suit:

♦ AQ432

♦ K986

You can't run all five tricks due to the blockage in the diamond spots (unless the opposing diamonds break 2-2, which only occurs 40% of the time). Sadly, the defense has just started an assault on the side entry to the long diamond. On a heart lead, you could have won the ace, played four rounds of diamonds ending in your hand, then led to the ace of spades to cash the last diamond. But no use despairing of what could have been... can you see the way around the problem?

Just duck the first two spades! On the ace of spades you can drop one of your big diamond spots and the suit will now look like

♦ AQ432

♦ K98

Now, king, ace, and queen of diamonds will leave you in the right hand to enjoy the fifth diamond.

What if the defense doesn't do your dirty work for you? An astute West might switch after the first spade. If he switches to a heart, he sets up another trick for you there, so he'd probably lead a club. Win that club, cash two rounds of diamonds ending on the board (you never know-- they might be 2-2 this time) and duck a spade. Win the (likely) club return, lead up to the last diamond honor on the table, discard that offensive high diamond from your hand on the ace of spades, and claim your nine tricks.

Playing in bad contracts strengthens your declarer play.

Last night at the bridge club, playing against an unusually strong pair for this five-table game, I picked up the unspectacular holding of

♠ J974 ♥QT82 ♦Q4 ♣T87

Nobody was vulnerable, and my RHO dealt and opened 1D. I passed, of course, and surprisingly, LHO did too. Partner doubled, and RHO passed. I had my first decision of the hand. The bridge books will tell you to bid up the line in all situations with 4-4 in the majors, but I feel strongly that this is an exception. Lots of times your partner will cuebid 2D over your 1H holding something like

♠ AQT3 ♥AJ3 ♦A5 ♣KJ94

and you won't know whether to 'reverse' into spades trying for your (possibly nonexistent) 4-4 fit there, or to rebid 2H to try to get out cheaply. So I advocate starting with 1S on this handtype, leaving yourself an easy 2H call on the next round. Here's a good rule that I always try to follow: Don't make your first bid until you've planned your second bid.

So I bid 1S, LHO passed, and partner leapt to 3S. I figured I had a lot more than I could on this auction, so bid the game. LHO led the nine of diamonds, and I saw

♠ AKT6 ♥ A ♦ K732 ♣ KQ52

♠ J974 ♥ QT82 ♦ Q4 ♣ T87

Pard had a great 19-count with a side stiff and four-card support, but I'm still not cold for 4S. Maybe this should make me rethink my "automatic" raise to 4S... but first I have to think about making this hand. From the lead, it looks like diamonds are 2-5. I have a diamond and probably two clubs to lose on top (LHO most likely wouldn't pass 1D with the club ace, so unless RHO has AJ tight, I have a second loser there). There's also a possible trump loser, and then there's the problem of it all adding up to ten tricks...

I played low from dummy at trick one, and RHO played an encouraging diamond spot (pretty much confirming the 2-5 break there). I won with the queen in hand and led a heart to the ace. It seemed like the best way to get up to ten tricks was to ruff diamonds in hand. In order to avoid a trump loser, I'd need the doubleton queen in opener's hand. So I led a low diamond off the table. RHO won with the ten (LHO following with the eight) and led a low diamond (usually the right play-- he didn't want to lead the ace, have me ruff high, then draw trumps and get a pitch on the good diamond king). I played loser-on-loser, pitching the seven of clubs. LHO ruffed in and led a club to the king and ace. Now RHO played the ace of diamonds to squash the king. I ruffed with the jack and was thrilled to see LHO pitch a club. Almost home! I led a spade to the ace (three, eight) and led two rounds of clubs. RHO followed to both of them, so I ruffed with the nine -- LHO pitched again. So clubs were 3-3 and the little club on the table was good. All that was left was to try to draw trumps-- low, low, king, queen! My two small black cards in dummy were good. Making four. Here's the whole hand:

Dealer E Vul None Scoring MP Lead ♦9	♠ AKT6 ♥ A ♦ K732 ♣ KQ52
♠ 532 ♥ K9543 ♦ 98 ♣ 643		♠ Q8 ♥ J76 ♦ AJT65 ♣ AJ9
	♠ J974 ♥ QT82 ♦ Q4 ♣ T87

When I started out declaring this hand, I certainly wasn't planning on ruffing out my 4-3 club fit for my tenth trick...

Bridge Master 2000

Bridge Master 2000 is, in my opinion, the best bridge program out there. It's a declarer play program, with dozens of preloaded hands. There are five skill levels. Level One is challenging for a novice; any reader of this site should breeze through them. Level Three should be tough for most players. Level Five is miserably hard... these are meant to trouble even World Champions. I'll put my favorite Level Five hand at the end of this article.

Bridge Base Online offers six sample deals at each of the five Levels. Try it for yourself! Log in to BBO, and click on "Other Bridge Activities". Near the bottom of the list is Bridge Master 2000. Click your preferred level and try the sample hands! You can purchase individual sets of hands on Bridge Base for $10.00 per 30 hands, and you can buy the whole program here for $59.95. The price tag may look steep, but I promise it's worth it. My suggestion would be to play the sample hands on BBO and find your level, then buy two sets of that level and one of the level above that. Then practice!

These hands are set up to reward the best lines of play. If you play it and fail, you can try again as many times as you need. Be warned-- the lie of the cards that wreck your first try may not be the same lie when you try again! If you try a different sub-par line of play, you'll get punished for that too.

My favorite deal from the samples on BBO is Level Five, deal 4:

Dealer:South Vul: None Scoring: Rubber

♠ AJ ♥ 5432 ♦ 432 ♣ A432 ♠ 2 ♥ AKQ ♦ AKQJT9 ♣ KT9

Once South finds out that North holds the black aces, he bounces into 7D. The king of spades is led, and it's your play. I'll post the full play in the Comments.