A slam bid, made, but sub-optimally

A stretch to reverse here, a pushy inquiry there saw me in slam. My partner correctly critiqued my play. But I don’t think you played it optimally. After you win the second trick, isn’t it best to play SA and ruff a spade high, then play a trump to dummy? If trumps are 4-0, you’ll still make if spades are 3-3, but if trumps are not 4-0, you can handle a 4-2 spade break by ruffing spades high twice more, getting back to dummy once more in trumps and the other time by ruffing the second round of diamonds. And if spades turn out to be 5-1, you’ll still survive if trumps are 2-2 and East is the one short in spades because you can ruff 3 red cards in dummy.

Backed into game by robot partner

After I had provided a support double and robot partner first appeared to subside in two hearts, he came to life with a cue bid of Four clubs, inspired, which backed me into the game. The evaluation proved correct! I suppose the robot uses four hearts rebid with a less defensive hand, all preempt

Well bid, partner!

An imaginative raise to four of a major on a distributional hand lacking the fifth trump. Well done by the robot judging by the result.

Trump 9 lead, KJTx defence covers. Wrong.

The bidding in second seat was a bit outrageous since you can only make a case for such a bid in third. Still I got a gorgeous dummy. Would I have had the gumption to run the Diamond nine? You see why the reflexive cover is such a bad play? In trumps I catch these robots covering honors the way they would plain suits. Since they cannot set up honor cards in partner's hand, this is futile, as Reese in his primers is fond of pointing out.

A judicious penalty double

since partner has some values. I figured, if no voids, my three aces and his defensive values must be at least down one..The defence of rising with the trump ace to deliver the ruff was marked and easy

Generating a lot of action

This hand played at most tables at 2S or 3S was played in 4S X at mine because I opened 1NT light.

The double and the defence were a bit brutal.

At some tables it went 1C (1D) 2C (2S) swish or maybe it was 1H… The 2H showing H and a minor vul was not a thing of beauty and when partner thought he had an independent spade suit, the roof fell in after two rounds of bidding at my table.

Splitting Trump KQx. Robot makes tyro error

My free rebid was not a thing of beauty. Neither was robot partner's excitable try bid (for slam??). We were then playing in the might as well be hung for a sheep as a goat territory. Luckily, tricks were pitched by defence.

A small or a grand slam? Bid the South hand

You did think about a grand slam, but how do you get a cooperative move from partner? 5NT in response to 4NT showed even keycards plus a void (most likely in clubs).

Hard to bid 7 not knowing about the HQ in this auction. you have a 50% shot even if partner *doesn’t* have the HQ. Not IMP odds, for sure. Do you think partner should have bid 4C rather than 3H; that would have been both more informative and a closer approximation of the value of the hand? Then when you bid blackwood, partner can show 2 key cards and the trump queen, and you have a much easier time bidding 7H.

Cornered and dangerous

I was playing in a 4board Swiss KO. I knew I had bungled the first board, there was not much hope till this board came along. I first just represented my strength a point higher.

Then we arrived at a thin slam where I had multiple queen locating to do, or some serious card reading.

After getting a count on the spades, I had resigned myself to playing E for the S:Qxxxx, and even with the SQ I come to 3+3+3+2top clubs, so I need to find the CQ. Judging the CQ to be offside and hoping angainst hope something would develop, I first cashed the second high club.

I got lucky..

13 badly needed IMPs for bidding this one. Other room 4NT +2

Is this a pinochle deck? or, good non-double

My judgement that Goren high card points do not transfer into setting tricks, made me pass their 4Spades. The defence in clubs was abysmal (I fell asleep on the count card of robot partner). But declarer has a road to 11 tricks or 10. This ordinary deal is just an illustration that the shoals of distribution of declarer and dummy are sometimes waiting to sink your double ships

Robot partner takes a fine view

My fourth seat double followed by yet another free reopening of 1NT showed 19-20 points. Partner with his seven spades took a fine view.

A cold-blooded low level penalty double

There was some ping pong in gifting each side a club trick. Aside from that but the way I defended, I would only have beaten him one on competent declarer play. If I just passively lead trump at every opportunity, declarer, with so few hand entries, might lose a spade, 3 hearts, 2 diamonds and 2 clubs for down 3. <\p>

A Robot's dark sense of humor?

Fancifully, the robot in the unambitious contract of 4H, showed its dummy what’s what by ruffing its own DA and DK to hand... pretty funny since any card would do

How can you get to slam?

A testing lead by a Robot, and lucking into a safety play

After I stopped precariously at five, West did well to take HA. The reason I played trump, the way I did was to avoid losing a ruff to a small doubleton trump. However this play, made instinctively and too quickly, was correct for another reason. Playing low to the A gains against stiff K with either West or East, as well as doubleton T9 with East. Leading the Q and letting it run if not covered gains against stiff T or stiff 9 with East, as you can lead to the 8 on the next round.

The play's the thing

Partner showed 9 points and exactly 4 spades and fewer than 3 hearts and I had no business going on, but as they say, I liked my hand.I liked how I got a lock on to nine tricks. I have to admit, my friend was right when he observed about these robots that "the opening lead resolved that suit and the lead to the second trick resolved *that* suit, so that makes life easier"

Sometimes the opponents are high and dry

My rebid of my suit was not a thing of beauty but my vulnerable opponents went on to bid 3NT and I was on lead. Our defence was blistering after I led a spade

Do not bid like this at home

Needing to generate a IMP swing, I looked to bid and make game here

My (human) correspondent I showed the hand to, rightly criticized my spade finesse on round three of the suit. "I can understand playing on spades before leading the 3rd round of clubs—if West had the last high club, you want to limit the number of tricks by which you go down. But taking the spade finesse on the 3rd round of the suit was an unnecessary risk—you still needed a club trick to make your contract, and if the spade finesse lost, you’d be down even if the last club honor was with East. And if the spade finesse was winning, and you don’t take it, you’ve managed to set up a trick for East, but at worst that would be the defense’s 4th trick—you still make your contract if East has the last high club"

Inferential bidding to an excellent slam in competition

In a robot IMP tourney, I boosted partner's competitive Five of a minor bid to SIX boldly, figuring him for a control from their bidding.

A 3NT with all suits breaking badly

The following was a deal featuring some bad breaks. I arrived in a Robot tourney as North in 3NT. After a deep spade finesse fectched the King, I could in the endgame play double dummy. With 4 cards left to play I endplayed West who had to give me two spade tricks for the contract

A cross-ruff squeeze

Truth, they say, is stranger than fiction. I was dealt the following hand in a challenge match. While I did not make the ambitious SIX SPADE contract despite negotiating trump for one loser, post-mortem analysis showed how I could make it. The slam is cold on any lead.

The lead was the Jack of hearts. I won in hand, and planned to take two spade finesses. It would be nice not to be missing the spade nine but I had to hope for the best. I advance the Q, covered King and ace. I returned to hand in diamonds and played a second spade up. I guessed to put in the 8 and breathed my first sigh of relief. RHO returned a diamond.

The rest is analysis. I now needed to tread a narrow path, Winning, I need to ruff a diamond and in the following diagrammed position, draw West's last trump. East is squeezed in three suits, (in clubs in a overtaking entry squeeze)

On the ten of spades, East cannot weaken a red suit. A diamond pitch sets up a twelfth trick at once. A heart pitch allows, HA Hruff, setting up long H with Club entry to enjoy the established heart. So East pitches a club. However, declarer now plays CK and CQ and noticing the fall of the J and the T which were made tight, declarer OVERTAKES the CQ with the Ace (see third diagram postion) and advances the now good C9 (this is not a extra 12th trick but a entry creating measure) throwing a heart and THEN playing the last free winner the trump simple squeezing East in the last diagrammed position

Hexagonal squeezes and six-card end positions

In 7NT (an overbid by design) I have twelve top tricks and extended menaces in spades and hearts. They lead a club and I peel off clubs putting pressure on both defenders. There is a dimaond Jack menace against the defender with the Diamond queen who will come under pressure in three suits, in principle. Each defender in turn tries to keep three cards in spades and hearts but is overburdened. I envision the six card ending to be something like the following. Now Ace and King of diamonds turns the screw on the partner of the defender holding on to the diamonds who must weaken one or the other of the extended meance suits.

If he weakens the same extended suit his partner has weakened (if he throws a spade, )declarer gets long spade for his thirteenth -( the situation in heartss and spades is symmetrical, it does not matter that for my example West has chosen to weaken spades somewhat unnaturally from his QJ)

So let us say he throws a heart in the diagrammed position on the second diamond. Now the sole guard of hearts is transferred back to the person with the diamond guard. So simply cash Spade Ace King and West is simple squeezed now.

This is a typical hexagonal squeeze. I learnt this lesson of identifying hexagonal squeezes from a player on the opponents' team, Bill Cole, in a Yale Harvard varsity match of the nineties.

The grand slam is a poor proposition, results notwithstanding, because an attack in communication in either extended menace suit will set the hand. A diamond or club lead allows the make.

In practice, the diagrammed position (the most thematic) was not arrived at, as West let go of diamond guard.

A neat deal. Squeeze play in 6NT

An agricultural auction landed me in 6NT. With the spades breaking, the only testing lead is a heart (else I can establish four spade tricks by losing a spade trick). I misguessed at trick one, or there would be no story. When the Queen was covered by the King, I rectified the count for a possible squeeze by ducking

When E continued hearts, I won, and worked on a double squeeze with the following threat cards H7, CJ, and the third round spade. I had to watch the discards for H8,T,J, CQ and there were guard squeeze possibilities. Indeed, after I cashed C AK, pitching spades, and ran a few diamonds, the first key end position was this, with East having to choose from three evils. If he blanks his SQ, I play a spade to King and pick up the J on a finesse. He cannot let go a Club or dummy's J promotes into a twelfth trick. He chose to be squeezed out of HIS heart guard. On the same trick, I let go the now useless CJ, and his partner was simple squeezed in hearts and spades

Notice that at trick two, East can break up the doubly guarded suit entry by shifting to a low spade, not a easy shift to find.

I shared this deal with my bridge partner, who looked me up and down, and said, the play was not bad, but next time do bid TWO CLUBS and you may get to the laydown SEVEN DIAMONDS. What are partners for?

Plan play in 6NT double dummy. Play or defend?

This real life hand, dealt in a BBO ROBOT IMP tourney provides fascinating scope for double dummy analysis. With best defense, would you care to declare or defend 6NT?

Consider one sample double dummy line on a Diamond lead. Win in hand high, preserving the Ten in dummy. Cash the heart Ace. Advance the SQ, forcing cover all around. Now lead a small heart toward K7. Righty with QJ6 has to split. (If he does not, letting my 7 win, I change horses and build up a club trick by forcing out the king, now 3H+2C+2S+5D =12) Win King and play a heart toward the 98x, establishing a good and long heart (A,K,8, x is 4 heart tricks). East on lead finds that all suits are stopped by declarer, who still has the DT entry, 5Diamonds + 4 hearts + 2 spades + 1 club = 12

Other leads are easier to analyse

So, did you chose to play or defend? What is that? You chose to play? Wrong. The lead of KING of spades prematurely knocks out the dummy entry, leaving you unable to do the fancy trick building footwork in hearts

Defending ONE SPADE, your lead at trick twelve?

You are playing in a matchpointed pairs 8 board individual event, and you are averaging a remarkable 79% after 6 boards. You are now defending ONE SPADE (all Pass). This is what you see. Please click on next for the first few tricks and stop at the diagrammed position.

Have you been counting or have you relaxed in the warm glow of success? How many trump are out. What do you play when you ruff in with the ST. the trump King or the heart. Why? Be specific.

If you have been counting there are 3 trump out in the two card ending. Declarer has 2 and partner has 1. Playing SK is a NULLO play because declarer's last trump will be worth a contract fulfilling trick. No, the only hope is that partner has a high trump and that declarer must helplessly underruff the last two tricks. Return the heart five and feel that warm glow grow into a huge grin. You have won the tourney of 71 people with an over 80 percentage. (In reality I got only 63% for -80 on this board, luckily a forcing NT gets them to a superior club spot or we could compete and go overboard)

The full hand

No doubt you noticed that declarer can always make the contract. It was a poor effort by him not to play a trump collapsing defense's 3 potential tricks. He has at least two opportunities to do so. Also, partner could have ruffed the CJ with his stiff trump Q giving us absolutely no chance to go wrong.