At the club last night, Joel and I bid this 33 hcp spade slam and unsurprisingly, I was the only person who made only 6.
Dealer: N Vul: EW | North ♠ QJx ♥ QT ♦ AKx ♣ Kxxxx | |
South ♠ AKT9xx ♥ AJ9x ♦ Q ♣ Ax |
West | North | East | South |
— | 1♣ | Pass | 1♠ |
Pass | 1NT | Pass | 2♦ |
Pass | 2♠ | Pass | 3♠ |
Pass | 4♠ | Pass | 4NT |
Pass | 5♦ | Pass | 5♥ |
Pass | 6♣ | Pass | 6♠ |
Pass | Pass | Pass | |
In our auction, the 1NT rebid showed 15-17, 2♦ was artificial game forcing, 3♠ was a slam try, 4♠ said “I hate my hand,” 4NT was RKC, 5♦ showed 1, 5♥ asked about the Q, 6♣ showed ♠Q and ♣Q and tends to deny the ♥K (5NT would have shown it and the ♠Q). West led a diamond. How would you play this hand?
You can guarantee making 6 by just drawing trumps and taking a heart finesse for an overtrick. That also leaves open the possibility of ruffing out 1 club (making 7 when spades are 2-2 (40%) giving you a late entry to dummy and clubs are 3-3 (35%) giving you a 3rd discard for the last potentially losing heart in hand). This line is 100% for making 6 and will make 7 slightly more than 60% of the time.
Noting that getting a 3rd club trick is enough to avoid having to rely on the heart finesse, someone not unlike myself might attempt to ruff a club before trumps are all in. This would all be moot if spades were 4-0 because then there definitely would be no entry to the long club.
Anyway, after playing a high trump from hand with both defenders following suit, I planned to play ♣A, ♣K, ruff a club high, go to dummy with a trump and ruff another club high if necessary, and get back to the good club while drawing the 3rd round of trumps. This line succeeds when clubs are 4-2 either way or 3-3, about 84%. Of course, this line does risk going down when clubs split badly and the heart hook is offside (8%).
LHO trumped the first round of clubs. The heart hook was on so I still made 6 for no matchpoints. Don’t you hate it when you take a superior line of play only to find out that the inferior line would have worked?
Mediocre players would draw trumps in 3 rounds, realize that they can’t set up clubs and get back to them, so they pitch 2 hearts on the diamonds (perhaps realizing that it doesn’t help at all) and then take a heart finesse. Expert players search for a way to make 7 that is better than just drawing trumps and taking a finesse.
Since nearly everyone, even fairly weak players, would reach 6S, the consideration of playing safe to make the contract shouldn’t really be an issue in matchpoints. Playing imps, the 20% extra chance of an overtrick is never worth the 8% chance of an undertrick, especially in a slam where an undertrick will cost 12 imps.
I don't know why, but my way would have worked for 13 tricks without relying on the heart finesse.
ReplyDeleteTrick count is up to 12, so am thinking Squeeze from the get-go. 2-2 spades, 4-2 or 3-3clubs...these possibilities simply don't occur to me as a low risk option for trick 13. If KH had been offside you would have been down, so not scoring the 13th trick here was justice IMHO.
Simply draw 3 rounds of trump ending in dummy, cash AK diamond pitching hearts, return to hand with the club Ace and run the spades keeping Kx club and T Heart in dummy. Your last 3 cards are AJH and a club. If KH is in the same hand as 4 clubs, you have a showup squeeze. What's the problem, why prefer playing for 3-3 clubs and 2-2 trumps over a normal squeeze?
Hmmm. I wasn't entirely accurate. I see the point of playing for 3-1 trumps, 4-2 clubs, which is a good % of time. Your way would have worked with that lie of cards and all 'subsets' (2-2 trumps, 3-3 clubs etc). Mine works with the hand holding KH holding 4 clubs. Your odds are better, but I never go down :-). Risk-reward. I don't mindlessly take the heart finesse after drawing trumps, am counting the clubs, and if they don't fall, am playing the hand with clubs to also have KH. It works in THIS case as it shows up. But where W had 4 clubs and E had KH, I'd lose relative to the field, if I didn't finesse at trick 12. Oh well. Yeah, your line is the better MP line.
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