Tuesday, December 20, 2011

I feel like I should have stuff to write about but I don't really have any interesting deals in my scorecards from the 5 STaC games I played in last week. I saw lots of comical things in the last week but no brilliant things.  The 27 MP I won in the STaC puts me over 500 for the year and basically in a tie for the D7 1000-2500 Mini-McKenney. yay. Here's to hoping my first 4 days at the Myrtle Beach regional are better than Peter Boyd-Bowman's.
 
One of the more amusing deals I saw was when I held AQ9x, Q, KJxxx, Qxx and see partner, in first seat favorable, open one very nebulous Swedish Canapé diamond, showing 0-5 diamonds and 11-16 points. The whole auction: 1-X-XX-1; 2*-2-3-X; 4-4-X-P; P-P.
*2 confirmed that Sean had a one-suited hand with long clubs. My low club lead out of turn was accepted and dummy, who bid 1 measly heart in response to the takeout double, showed up with a ridiculous 14-count: xx, AKxxx, AQxx, Jx. 28 hcp are visible with opener and takeout doubler still hidden!  What the heck were they bidding on? Fortunately 4 black cards cashed and we got a decent score. It was, indeed my RHO, not Sean, who was the joker on this deal with Jxxxx, Jxxxx, x, xx.
 
I liked my defense on this board.
Dealer: N
Vul: EW
North
Txxx
Axx
KJx
xxx
West
AJxx
KQ9
T8x
K9x
East
x
Txxxx
Q9xx
Axx
South
KQ9x
Jx
Axx
QJTx
 
West
North
East
South
 
 
Pass
Pass
1
 
 
Pass
1
Pass
2
 
 
Pass
Pass
Pass
 
I got off to a low diamond lead. The J was covered and won by declarer. Declarer then crossed to the A to lead a spade and I let the K win. She then crossed to the K and led another spade. I took the AJ and cleared spades. At this point declarer began working on clubs but it was too little too late. I was able to win the K, cash my red winners and then lead a club to partner who had another red winner, the 9 in this case, for the 3 trick set.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Which Squeeze to play for - never mind, there's only one possibility

Last night I had an interesting play problem in a slam. In 6NT, there are 11 top tricks. How would you plan on getting the 12th?
 

North
AK8x
AKx
Ax
Kxxx


South
Tx
QJx
KT8x
AQJx


South
West
North
East


1
Pass
1
Pass


1NT
Pass
6NT
Pass


Pass
Pass

















After the lead of the T, I played a spade to my ten and LHO's Q to rectify the count and try to set up a squeeze. Back came a heart, and I then cashed the clubs. LHO discarded 2 low diamonds and RHO ditched a heart. Both followed to the 3rd heart and to the next 2 rounds of spades, with the J appearing from RHO on the last spade. Under the A, LHO drops the J. Should I now play a diamond to the T or a diamond to the K at trick 12?

In this 2 card ending, I know one opponent has a good spade and there are 3 diamonds out. If RHO has the good spade, the contract is un-makeable because LHO would surely have Qx left. So, we must assume that LHO has the good spade and RHO has 2 diamonds left. The odds are 2 to 1 in favor of him having Qx left rather than xx. With 3 cards out, there are 2 ways he can have Qx but only 1 way he can have xx.

So does this mean that finessing is the right play? Well, no. It's what I did and it took me awhile to figure out that this was clearly the wrong play. LHO wouldn't play the J under the A at trick 11 unless it was his last diamond or if he had only QJ left. And I had a whole count on the hand (except I didn't know for sure who had the remaining spade), so LHO had to have another diamond. Playing the J from Jx left would be giving me an opportunity to finesse that he could prevent by keeping the singleton J. Therefore, the only legitimate line of play was to play for the squeeze where LHO started with Q9xx and QJxx. I'm glad I finally figured that out. I knew it wasn't just a restricted choice available spaces problem but I couldn't figure out why until just now.