Friday, September 30, 2011

AKx opposite x is sometimes worth 3 tricks

Last night at the bridge club, a place I haven't spent much time this month, Joel and I had a pretty bad game, but it was still fun. The fun was probably more due to the Malibu than anything. Here is one of our bad boards and a very interesting hand.
 
Dealer: E
Vul: none
North
x
Kxx
A9xx
AK6xx
South
AKx
AQJx
KQx
98x
East
South
West
North
1
Pass
3
Pass
4NT
Pass
5
Pass
5
Pass
6
Pass
6NT
Pass
Pass
Pass
3 was a splinter and I intended 4NT as a quantitative invite as 4, I believe would have been RKC blackwood. Regardless, 5 is surely a blackwood response showing 0 or 3 key cards, 5 Q ask, 6 no Q.
West led the Q and I won the ace in dummy with RHO showing out. Plan the play.
You can count 11 top tricks – 2 spades, 4 hearts, 3 diamonds, 2 clubs - with virtually no chance of picking up a 3rd club trick, so the 12th trick will have to come from diamonds or spades. If diamonds are 3-3, it's easy but if not, you have some work to do to potentially set up a squeeze. You might as well start by ducking a club to rectify the count and maybe put some pressure on west. Assuming west does find a spade shift, you proceed to cash all your winners except spades. With the club left to be played, here is the 4 card ending.
Dealer: E
Vul: none
North
x
9
Kx
West
Jx
QJ
East
QTx
T
-
South
AKx
9
West had to hold a club stopper and east must hold the top diamond. Therefore neither opponent can hold a spade stopper. The small spade in declarer's hand will be good to win trick 13.
That's a fairly simple double squeeze. I must say that I didn't give the hand enough thought or maybe I was too tipsy and I tried a different squeeze – the simple squeeze against west having to hold both clubs and diamonds, but that squeeze is much less likely because it would mean east started with 11 major suit cards. So, I went down 1. Despite 33 hcp, no one else reached 6NT but one other pair reached 6, down 2, so we still got 1 matchpoint.

5 comments:

  1. Not the first time that the beauty of a double squeeze has succumed to the evils of Deamon Rum.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That would be DEMON rum!

    ReplyDelete
  3. If you have the agreement that 4C or 4D is some kind of RKC then I do not think 5C over 4NT is clearly a blackwood response; partner can have a hand that does not want to accept a slam invite but also demands to play in clubs I believe.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well I'm not sure if we were playing either Mwood or kickback, both clearly superior to regular rkc. And in matchpoints I don't think 5C would ever be a suggestion to play 5C.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The Malibu was flowing, and we do play Minorwood, so 4NT is a quantitative invitation (which I realized after I bid 5C). However, if I'm not passing, then replying as RKC can't hurt. Regarding the splinterer "demanding" to play in clubs, on what basis could the splinterer possibly know whether notrump or clubs is preferable? Isn't one of the reasons to splinter to tell the opener whether or not notrump is preferable? So, even at IMPs, it's not up to the splinterer to decide on NT vs. clubs.

    ReplyDelete