Sin #3. End Plays and Hesitation and Forcing Bids. Oh My!

The first five rounds have been less than stellar. I estimated at least 8 fixes. Our opponents were landing in perfect contracts by sheer Christmas magic and there was nothing we could do.

How about this auction...

Pass-pass-pass-1S

Pass-1NT-pass-2S

pass- 2NT

The 1NT was not announced as Semi-forcing (whatever the heck that means) but in 2/1 or standard 2S is always always always always always a drop dead bid.

2NT then becomes the magical, 'we don't have a fit!' bid because I'd rather play some crappy no trump contract and make my partner's 6 spades completely worthless.

You can imagine how irked I was when Righty whipped out 2NT. My 5 spades were now worthless. The only consolation was that we defended 2NT perfectly. Declarer's 10xx of hearts opposite Kxx turned out to be truly magical.

So that was sort of how the day went until the penultimate round.

Pass by partner, 1S by righty. I'm 4-3-3-3 with 11 points. As much as I want to break discipline and do something crazy to make up for 20 boards of pure hell, I pass. 

2H by lefty. They are playing 2/1 so this could be an interesting auction. Pass, 4S by righty. Pass.

Lefty thinks for not long enough and plops down my favorite card. (No, it's not pass)

Righty shows 2 keycards with the queen and they bail out in 5S.

There's plenty to discuss about the bidding, so we'll get back to that. 

I'm on lead. I have four trumps and I don't think I gain anything from leading one. I have two Aces, one supported and one not. My natural lead could be J from AJ10 but this auction is concerning and I want the diamonds to come through declarer to me.

I think leading low from my queen of hearts, through strength is the correct play.

Dummy tables his hand and announces that had he known I was going to lead that, he would have bid 6. I tell him that I probably would have doubled it then. Lolz.

As I wait for Lefty to put down a couple spades, I count and realize that he's void. 

???

(Side note: this would be an atrocious time to lead my unsupported Ace)

Well, we're not getting fixed on this one. Either it makes or it doesn't, and we should at least have a slight advantage over the field for being one level too high.

Declarer may have given up right away and taken a poor line of play, assuming it wouldn't matter. 

Declarer may also have been day dreaming about all those fabulous black friday deals he was missing out on.

The ace of hearts is played followed by two low.

The King of hearts is played, low, declarer pitches a club.

I sit and think for a moment.

WRONG!

I've now given declarer information he is not entitled to. I've made it obvious that I have a decision to make. If I have QJ10x or Qx or xx, I'm always playing in tempo.

He now (should*) know that I have 3 hearts. We'll come back to why this is important.

I unblock the Queen of hearts in case I need to get to partner later. I don't want to be end played and forced to lead from my minor suit holding.

He plays the King of clubs from dummy, partner plays low, declarer pitches a low diamond, I win my Ace.

I exit with a spade. I didn't think I was giving anything up. Partner could have Kx of spades, but remember the auction - righty showed 2 keycards, and I can see the other 3.

I don't want to burn my exit card just yet because I won't have spades to exit later.

Declarer pulls trump and we get to this:

Declarer plays one more spade for good luck. (It's kinda hard to discard wrong here, but you never know. I throw a club)

He plays a low diamond, my ten wins the trick. I don't think it is wrong for partner to over take the diamond, but he knows I still have the heart. Had I pitched the heart or only started with two, partner should overtake to avoid a potential endplay. 

Why is declarer playing a low diamond? What is his holding? He could have played a low diamond from the board if he needed to pick up the queen, so declarer must have more holes in the suit. 

I use my heart as my last exit, declarer ruffs, plays a low diamond. I win the Jack, play the Ace and declarer ruffs the last trick for down 2.

As it turns out 4 pairs went down. Sometimes down one is good bridge. Sometimes down one saves you a match point or two.

I know there are many times I've made the mistake of rushing through a hand because making the contract is hopeless. But why go down 2 or 3 when you can save 1?

So let's go back to the beginning:

Declarer needs 11 tricks. He needs some luck or a defensive error. You can see how damning a diamond or club lead would be here.

On the second heart, the club pitch does absolutely nothing for him. 

Playing a low diamond to the king would not be hateful but when you can eliminate a 50/50 guess you should. If declarer can force the opponents to break the diamond suit, he doesn't have to guess.

END PLAY

Playing the king of clubs and hoping it doesn't get covered doesn't help. The opponents don't know you are short in clubs so they have no reason to duck.

My hesitation should give declarer the safe play of playing the third heart. If partner ruffs the heart he can over ruff or if he's worried about me ruffing, he can ruff high. But I think it should be clear that hearts are 3-3 and playing a third heart is correct.

After ruffing and pulling trump, he can play a low club from his hand. In this situation I'm never gonna duck the club, but I might. Give the defense a chance to screw up - it costs nothing here. Pitching a diamond on the king of clubs never ever ever gains a trick but playing low towards the king might.

As you can see, once I'm in with the Ace of clubs the hand is over.

All of my exit cards have been pulled. I can't exit a spade or a heart unless I pull one out of the first few tricks. A club return gives him two club tricks.

So now I have to decide whether to play the A of diamonds or the jack, and declarer will always get the King - so that's 7 spades, 2 hearts and one diamond for down 1. If my partner has the Ace of clubs and I have the Ace of diamonds, declarer is always down and there's nothing he can do about it.

Ok so let's talk about this bidding sequence.

2/1 is game forcing. The whole reason we play it is so you don't have to jump around and create forcing bids.

The jump to 4 spades does describe his hand and I don't find it hateful.

As you can see this hand is way too good to open 4s. Switch the King of diamonds to the stiff King of hearts and I might consider it, although the shape is very nice, probably too nice for a second seat pre-empt.

The jump should be a shutout bid, but maybe his partner expected more out of him. The West hand is really nice, but 4NT is fishing. I think he needs a few more points for 4NT, but I can understand partner thinking that with the right cards slam is a lay down.

Change the king of diamonds to the Ace of clubs and it is. 

Although I suspect that with that hand, east would have made the same jump to 4S, and if West passes (like he should) East would have successfully blocked them out of a slam. 

Bid 4NT to stay out of bad slams, not find them. Even so, with a void, you don't really gain from asking for Aces. The contract depends on which Aces partner has.

Also, do I need to mention that he's void in trump? Red flag! Transportation issues! How will he ever finesse for the jack of spades! Again, with more points and a better second suit, 4NT isn't horrible but it's still never right in this sequence.

So 1S-2H---

Partner can rebid spades as much as he wants. There is no chance of missing game here. 2S would be fine. Partner could now rebid clubs twice or jump to 4C to show his shape. Opener continues to bid spades and partner should realize that his extreme shape isn't encouraging him at all. I can now give up on my beautiful 6-6 hand and be happy to be in 4.

Show your hand, but let partner make some decisions and show his hand as well.