Defensive Error(?) / Endplay #1!!

I played this hand last month after an excruciatingly, long holiday break...

I find myself sitting in the money seat. Maybe it's the fact that I haven't seen cards for a week or maybe I really am getting all the fun hands.

Either way it's a good day. I'm above ground and I'm playing bridge. What more can you ask for?

How about an awesome endplay!?'




So the day is going well already, and then I pick up this cluster of deliciousness:

None Vul, pass by North to me - i'm playing funny-bridge aka Chinese Checkers aka precision, so I get to open this 1C.

I would also open this 1C in standard because I'm not a fan of stretching and bidding 2nt.

In standard this auction will go (uncontested) 1c-1h-4h. 

In precision partner bids 1d to show 0-7 hcp, I bid 1h (either a hand w hearts or a balanced hand with 19+ hcp), partner is 100% forced to bid 1s. He does. So with my second bid of 1nt, I describe my 19-20 balanced hand, partner bids 2c as stayman - 2h - and here we are in 4H.

None of this is especially pertinent to this post, but the opponents didn't ask at the time, and maybe it would have helped them to get some clarification. 

The 10 of diamonds comes down to:

I have a spade loser for sure. If hearts are friendly I have 1 heart loser, but I could easily have 2, in which case I can't afford for the king of clubs to be off. In situations like this, I don't want the contract to rely on a 50% chance. If I absolutely have to take it, I will, but maybe something nice will happen in spades.

I win the diamond on the board and I have no reason not to draw trump. I have no reason to guess differently, so I play the jack of hearts and hope for the best. Low, low and lefty wins the Q. Awesome. Lefty plays a spade, low from dummy, Ace, low from me.

Righty returns a diamond, I win in my hand, play the 10 of hearts and breathe a sigh of relief as everyone follows low. I have a feeling lefty has the Ace of hearts, but I'm not sure. 

I play the last diamond, then start on spades. Lefty is now in a pickle. I play some more spades, lefty can ruff in with the Ace, but now has to either give me a ruff/sluff by leading a diamond (allowing me to pitch a club from dummy) or lead into my AQ of clubs.

He chose the latter. 

All 4:

First things first. I got lucky that North did not return a spade at trick 4.

On the lead of the 10, North should have the diamond situation figured out and realize that the suit is hopeless. Maybe he figured that if he didn't lead the spade on opening lead, it can't be a singleton. One of the experts has that rule/saying (if you don't lead a singleton, you don't have one).

This is not an easy hand because it's early and it's hard for North to figure out where the points are. But if we agree that a diamond return is pointless (did partner underlead the A of diamonds? A109x? AK10? This seems unlikely against a suited contract. Partner is probably not a psychic, hoping to let me ruff the 3rd round of diamonds) 

A heart return is passive. It might not hurt - maybe it makes me continue to guess the side suits. 

I can always play clubs myself so a club return isn't really hurtful (or helpful).

But what does the spade give away? And what is partner's 7 of spades? If it's a doubleton, a spade return loses nothing. Is he leading low from Q7? Declarer could always get in and play a spade to the board, but this would still take an entry off the board.

 If it's from QJ7, maybe declarer has transportation issues-- but why would partner lead low from qjx? And if it is QJ7, why didn't he lead that on opening lead instead?

Remember the bidding - declarer is balanced - so he has either two spades or three...

But wait!! Back up!

Why doesn't South just make it easy and lead his stiff spade on opening lead!?!?!

This is important to consider. I don't agree that if you should always lead your singletons. Usually this helps declarer setup a long suit, and you end up ruffing with your natural trump tricks.

Better to tap declarer than yourself!

It's very lucky to find partner with the Ace in your stiff suit. Sometimes we need to get lucky. But the hearts could sit differently and you could be ruffing with good hearts. In this case you've taken the same tricks but at the cost of setting up a suit for declarer.

But I like AQx - you have at least first round control of trump and you have time to figure out the defense.

Of all the hateful times to lead a singleton, having AQx of trump is probably pretty low on the list.

I find myself leading useless doubletons as 'safe' leads, but with AKx in trump I'm probably safe to look for a ruff in that suit.

Anyways, I thought it was interesting.

I'll continue to post about singleton leads as I encounter them.

To be continued!