The Power of Aces

It was a good day for team play in Sonoma Sunday as Bob and I bid and made lots of close games.

1. LHO opened 1C, RHO responded 1H and I overcalled 1S with:

QJ10xx
A10
AJx
Axx

LHO passed and partner bid 2S. I now started a serious evaluation of my hand. I counted the points (16), counted the losers (7), considered the positional aspects (LHO would hold most of the points), and weighed the merits of making a game try. I also thought about the best game try. I decided that if partner had help in diamonds we might be able to make a game. As I didn't have any quick losers, my hope was to draw trumps and set up diamonds before both my aces could be knocked out.

Accordingly I bid 3D, a help suit game try, and partner, after thinking a bit, jumped to 4S. A heart lead revealed this dummy:

A9x
xx
Q108xx
xxx

QJ10xx
A10
AJx
Axx

His hand is weak but he has the requested diamond help, so he did the right thing by jumping to game. We only have 20 points, but we have a fit and my aces should give me the time I need. I like my chances.

I win the heart ace and lead the SQ which holds. A spade to the 9 holds and all follow. Half way there. Now I just need to knock out the DK and my game should come home. A diamond to the jack holds. I cash the ace and give up a diamond. They can cash their heart, but I have the spade ace as an entry to the diamonds and can pitch my losing clubs. Making 5 is worth 7 imps as they only scored 140 at the other table.

2. Partner opened 2NT (19-21) and I held:

xxxx
x
QJ10xxx
J9

What to do? I decided to bid 3C, puppet stayman, and then maybe pass a 3D response. Partner did indeed bid 3D and I had another decision. Partner is announcing no 5 card majors and at least one 4 card major. Surely his major is hearts (my shortness), but what if it is in spades? If we have a spade fit then all of a sudden my hand is worth something.

The match is going well and I decide I can risk a small minus if my bid doesn't work. I bid 3H which shows four spades, and, to my surprise, pard bids 3S, showing four spades also. We have found the fit. Good--I raise to game!

Pard holds:
KJT9
AQx
AKxx
KT

xxxx
x
QJ10xxx
J9

He has no trouble scoring up 420. We win 7 more imps as the opponents only score 130.

Good hand evaluation includes recognizing the importance of aces and fits.

See you at the table!

A Big Black Beauty

By John Kozero, Santa Rosa

If you have a taste for monster distributional hands, you'll love the big black beauty I picked up this week, one which helped our team (Jenn, Bob K. and Gary R.) win a two session Swiss in Sonoma. I picked up with no vulnerability:

S: AKQJ9875
H: Void
D: Void
C: AJ852

As I kept unsuccessfully peeling the cards apart trying to find a flash of a red spot, I also started calculating how I was going to bid this monster. I had decided to go slow and just open 1S rather than 2C to learn as much about the other hands as possible, when it occurred to me that partner was the dealer. And he had just placed a 1D card on the table.

Righty hitched briefly but passed. I kept with my strategy of going slow with a 1S call. In my fantasy I was hoping to hear partner possibly bid 2C which would allow me to jump to 5NT with a Grand Slam Force. Pass by Lefty. Pard bid 2D. Pass.

At this point I altered my strategy--not to arrive at a grand slam but rather to make a small slam, especially since my table feel was telling me Righty had some points and was listening carefully. So the less he knew about my hand the better. I rolled the dice and concluded the auction with a 6S call. Come and get me.

Lefty thinks briefly and leads the 9 of Clubs. Partner looks at me sheepishly and says "I know you were not expecting this, and I'm sorry" as he lays down:

S: 2
H: 98753
D: AKQ7652
C: Void

S: AKQJ9875
H: Void
D: Void
C: AJ852

Actually I rather like Gary's opener. Opening 3D non-vul would be a massive underbid. And I'm very glad I did not reveal anything about my hand other than a huge spade suit, otherwise I might have received a trump lead which would have cut me off completely from dummy, sending me down a bunch. The combination of the singleton trump deuce and the club void was worth four tricks. As it was, I trumped the club and cashed three top diamonds which divided 3-3. I could then ruff a heart and pull trumps, making 7.

At the other table, the bidding went Pass (not 1D) - 1NT by Righty - 4 Spades by this big black beauty. Making 6. We won 11 imps thanks to an inspired opening and non-revealing auction.

Length vs. Strength

In Friday afternoon's STaC pairs game, I picked up this hand:

S J8
H T7642
D AKQ4
C T8

I dealt and passed. LHO passed. Partner opened 2 clubs. RHO passed. I bid 2 diamonds, which showed some values (2 hearts would have showed a really bad hand). LHO passed, partner bid 3 clubs and RHO passed. What do you bid?

My first thought was to show the 5-card heart suit by bidding 3 hearts. But then I thought some more. What is partner likely to hold, and how can my bidding help him? What do I know about this hand vs. what does partner know? Which one of us can best place the contract? Even if we have a heart fit, do we want to play in hearts?

Partner is showing a big hand with a club suit. He has nothing much in diamonds, so he has to have points in the majors. Even if he has 3 good hearts, say AQx, we may have one or two heart losers in a heart contract. Plus, if we play it in hearts, I will have to declare so the opening lead will come through partner. All things considered, I thought that any contract should be played by partner, and that the most likely contracts for us would be 6 no-trump or 6 hearts. So I decided to bid 3 diamonds. My plan was to bid 6 no-trump if partner bid the expected 3 no-trump, or 6 hearts if partner bid 3 hearts.

Partner duly bid 3 no-trump which I raised to 6 no-trump. This got us a cold top on the board, since the entire hand was as follows:

S J8
H T7642
D AKQ4
C T8

S T754........ S K962
H K3........... H QJ965
D JT932..... D 75
C 97............ C 65

S AQ3
H A
D 86
C AKQJ432

6 no-trump made 7. West led the Jack of diamonds. Partner won the ace and ran the clubs. East had to guess whether declarer had the AQ of spades, in which he had to hold spades and discard hearts, or AKx of hearts and Ax of spades, in which case he had to hold hearts and pitch spades. He eventually threw spades so we had an easy 13 tricks. The most popular contract was 6 clubs.

Note that even if partner's majors were reversed, the best contract is still 6 no-trump. But if he had that hand, if I had bid 3 hearts we would have gotten to an inferior 6 heart contract.

Kibitz Cavendish

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See you at the table!

Dramatic Hands

Unfortunately Bob K. and I didn't hold many cards in the pair game today, but there were a couple of dramatic hands.

I last wrote about an 8 card diamond suit--the 8-5 hand. Check this out:

x
x
AQJ1095432
A9

A rare 9-bagger! RHO opens 1S and I double (as usual). LHO jumps to 2NT, limit raise or better and RHO tries to close out the auction with 4S. Not so fast--5 diamonds! Pass, pass, double. My partner made a slow pass, no doubt thinking about the 8-5 hand.

A spade is led and a worthless dummy appears:

10xxx
Q98x
6
QJxx

x
x
AQJ1095432
A9

I can't avoid losing 4 tricks for minus 500. The opponents can make 4S and we get an average score.

**********
After a long day of defending and playing the wrong boards against the wrong pairs (whine, whine), I finally pick up something good on the last board:

K985
Ax
AKQJ
AK10

I open 2C, pard responds 2D, waiting, and I rebid 2NT. After a puppet stayman auction, during which we find our spade fit and I learn that he is 4-4 in the majors, pard bids 4N, keycard for spades. I show 4 keycards and he asks for kings! This is amazing as I have the absolute best hand I could have for my bidding. I should probably jump directly to 7 spades at this point*, but I decide to bide my time to see what he will do.

I show 2 kings and he signs off in 6S. I don't think so. With partner bidding this strongly--and with my powerhouse, plus the knowledge that I can ruff hearts in my hand I bid the grand: 7 spades!

Dummy is suitable and I get a trump lead (good lead against a grand slam).

AQJ10
Kxxx
x
xxxx

K985
Ax
AKQJ
AK10

I count my tricks, and it looks like I have 13 if I can just ruff a heart in my hand. I draw a second round of trumps and all follow. I finish by drawing trumps and ruffing the heart as planned. Altogether I take 5S (counting the ruff), 2H, 2C and 4D. 1510 is a tie for top and a satisfying conclusion to the session.

*A 5NT bid, in addition to asking for kings, shows all of the controls and is therefore an invitation to a grand slam. Responder is therefore entitled to jump directly to the grand if she has some previously undisclosed length or strength.

Discussing the hand later, I learned that some folks jumped to 3NT with my hand, after opening 2C, and then had problems with follow-up bids. Be sure you know what your agreements are over 3NT openers or rebids.

Here is a workable agreement:

4C Stayman
4D transfer to H
4H transfer to S
4S minor suit slam try, promises another bid if opener bids 5 of a minor.
4NT Blackwood

See you at the table!

8-5?!

I keep thinking about this amazing hand I held last weekend in a sectional team game.

Axxxx
Void
AQ10xxxxx
Void

That's right--5 spades and 8 diamonds. Before I could fully comprehend and appreciate this distributional wonder, LHO opened 1C. RHO responded 1H and I had my first decision. Obviously I was going to bid to a high level with this 3 loser hand, but how to do it? I decided to start with a double to emphasize the strength of the hand, and hope for opportunities to get both suits into the picture.

LHO made a support redouble and partner passed. If pard had a few spades and a few points he probably would have bid. RHO passed and I decided to jump to 5 diamonds. Pass, pass, double by RHO.

A heart was led and I saw this dummy:

Jx
109xxx
K
xxxxx

Axxxx
Void
AQ10xxxxx
Void

Could be better, but there are chances if spades break 3-3 or if I can ruff a spade. I ruff the heart and lead a low spade. LHO wins and correctly returns a trump. Rats--now I have to run all of my diamonds and hope for spades to break or for an error by the opponents.

I ruff a heart back to my hand (ruffing a club would give a count on my hand and make it easy to defend) and start running diamonds. No one pitches spades and when I finally play ace and another spade, they are able to cash 2 spades for down 1.

Unfortunately my counterpart only bid to 4D and sat for the double of 4H so we lost imps. Partner could have had a little more help or we coulda had a little more luck. I'd bid it the same way again!

See you at the table!

A Defensive Problem

My opponents didn't get this one right at the club today. I don't recall the exact holdings, but the problem was something like the following. See if you can do better. Assume that you are playing standard count and attitude signals.

The bidding:

LHO Ptr RHO You

1NT P 2D* P
3H** P 4H P
P P

* transfer
** superaccept


You hold:

Q82
A5
AT754
J64

Partner leads the Jack of spades. Dummy has:

965
QT876
KJ2
Q7

You play the 8 of spades to encourage and declarer wins with the Ace. He now plays the Queen of diamonds. Partner follows with the 3. Plan your defense.


Stop and consider what declarer's problam is before playing to this trick. You can place declarer with 16-17 HCP and 4 hearts for his superaccept. From partner's lead, you know that he almost certainly has the AK of spades (partner isn't likely to lead the Jack from KJTx when opener has shown a strong notromp.) He led the Queen of diamonds. This accounts for 9 points. He probably has the King of hearts to justify a supperaccept, which brings it up to 13. He thus should have either the Ace or King of clubs but not both.

Why isn't declarer drawing trumps? He has to lose to your 2 aces, and partner's club honor will produce a third trick for the defense. You will have to get a second spade trick to beat the contract. Considering declarer's line of play, he is trying to avoid a spade loser by setting up dummy's diamonds for a spade discard. Can you prevent this?

You note that there is no quick entry to dummy outside of the diamond suit. If declarer plays a club, partner will get in first. If he plays hearts, you will. So if you can arrange to set up your spade trick before he can get to dummy, you will be able to cash it when either of you gets the lead back before he can get the discard.

The solution is to hold up the Ace of diamonds one round, win the second diamond and play another spade. Partner's deuce signalled an odd number of diamonds. You have 5 and dummy has 3, so declarer has Qx of diamonds. The entire hand is:


975
QT876
KJ2
Q7

JT54.....Q82
93........ A5
983..... AT754
A952... J64

AK6
KJ42
Q6
KT83

Note that to complete the successful defense, your partner will have to be alert and hop up with his ace of clubs if declarer leads low toward dummy. (If he ducks, declarer will reach dummy to get that discard after all.) After you worked so hard, a good partner will reward you by getting it right when it is his turn to make a critical play, since he should be thinking along with you.

This is an interesting illustration of why Aces are worth so much more than Kings. Here the defenders can control the flow of play by using their Aces judiciously. One defender has to hold up his Ace to cut communications, and the other has to play his as quickly as possible to take advantage.