I had a chuckle on this hand, because it's not like me to forget about an outstanding Ace of trumps, but I was "rescued" by Opps in the end.

Game All, Dealer South

North (Dummy)
  42
  97543
  2
  AQ842

South
  AK
  862
  AQ1093
  1097

Bidding
South     West    North     East
1NT         No        2         No
2          All Pass

West leads the 6. West contributes the Jack and you win in hand. How do you plan the play?

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.
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Missing the top 5 Heart honours, this hand has the potential to go horribly wrong. You've only got 3 entries to hand, one of which has just been used up. Since you are going to have to tackle the Clubs at some point, I decided not to lose a tempo by using this occasion to draw trumps, and ran the 10 at trick 2. Unexpectedly, this held the trick (both Opps playing low), which was great, but didn't bode very well for the Club distribution, so I switched to a trump at trick 3, West contributing the 10 and East the Queen, which was encouraging. East returned a Spade, won in hand, and another round of Hearts followed (West played the Jack and East the King). East now obligingly  returned a 3rd Spade, which suggested to me that West had the Ace of Hearts.

I ought (on general principles) to ruff this trick in hand and discard a Club from Dummy. That extra unlooked-for entry to my hand would allow me to run the 9 (which West would now presumably cover with the Jack), but I'd still have the Ace as an entry to hand to take a finesse against West's King. Originally I was quite content to lose one Club trick, but taking the low finesse by running the 10 first is a 75% line that loses only 1 Club trick whenever West has either the King or the Jack. Now, however, I can win all of the Clubs and come out smelling of roses with 2 overtricks.

Having convinced myself that West held the Ace and KJxx, however, I now had a complete brain fart and ruffed the 3rd Spade in Dummy rather than in my hand. Moreover, when I exited with a Heart, it was East who won the trick and switched to a Diamond. I took my Ace, but realised, to my chagrin, that I would only make 9 tricks rather than 10, because when I led the 9 of Clubs, West could cover and I had no way back to my hand and would have to give them one Club trick.

West rescued me, however, by not covering the 9 and so my 10 tricks on a combined 19-count missing all 5 top honours in trumps duly came in. Kind Opps!!!! This was surprisingly good, since the KJx were offside in the West hand and Opps have an easy 3 part-score on. Only one other pair were allowed to play in a Heart part-score and the only other plus scores for NS were from EW Pairs who got too high and went off in Spade contracts.

This was an interesting hand which Easter bid very intelligently, I feel, in a game today.

EW Game, Dealer South

North
  AQ5
  -
  A9752
  K9832

South
  J764
  QJ6
  K83
  A106

Bidding
South      West      North      East
1NT(1)      No          2NT(2)     No
3 (3)     No           No           3
No           4           5          No
5          X              All Pass

I think Eszter bid this one very well. She's not worth a game forcing 4 over 3 opposite a 10-12 1NT that didn't super-accept Diamonds (I nearly did, as it happened, but I was too flat and "quacky", with insufficient "quick" tricks outside Diamonds that a super-accept would make the difference if Eszter almost had a single-suited hand worth an invitation). Over 4 , though, it looked fairly certain from her viewpoint that I had a doubleton Spade and so only 1 Spade loser, so now pushing with 5 seemed worthwhile. (She wasn't to know that West had quixotically raise to 4 on the stiff King of Spades).

West led the aforementioned stiff King of Spades against 5 !DX.

It was obvious to me that it probably was a singleton as I didn't think East would have bid 3 on 109xx (1098xx was foolish enough). I also calculated that I probably couldn't make this contract if the Diamonds were 4-1, which the double of 5 suggested might be the case I'd lose 2 Diamonds and a Club, at least), so I decided to go for broke:

At trick 2 I played a small Diamond to my King and a Diamond back to Dummy's Ace, West contributing the Jack and East the 10 (big sigh of relief in the South camp at this point LOL). Now a small Club from Dummy brought the Queen from East, so I won and ran the 10 on the next round, which held, East discarding a small Heart. The rest of the hand was easy: I just played out winners in Spades and Diamonds and the only trick the defence could take was East's Queen of Diamonds.

I can't really play this hand any differently even if the Diamonds do turn out to be 4-1 (I just lose 2 Diamond tricks rather than only 1). The hand still makes because of the favourable 4-1 split in Clubs, but I wasn't to know that).

Who knows what was going through West's head when he bid 4 and doubled 5 . It just goes to show that you should double on the basis of what you have in your hand, not what you're assuming Partner might have in their's. The overtrick in 5 !DX gave us a nice 9½ IMPs.

Eszter got a shared top on the following hand, despite not following what I would have thought was the best line. Having said that I'm not entirely certain myself what the best line is, and I certainly can't argue with success, but she was helped by not one but two pieces of suicidal defence:

Love All, Dealer West

You are North, and you and partner bid to 3NT via the Cambridge Heart Complex. East leads the & and this is what you can see:

South (Dummy)
  J104
  Q84
  A653
  632

  7 led

North (You)
  AK73
  A63
  Q9
  AK97

You play low from Dummy and take West's Jack of Diamonds with your Queen. So far so good, but what is our plan? You can see 7 top tricks (2 , 2 , 1 and 2 ). An 8th will come easily enough if the Clubs are 3-3, and 9 tricks will come automatically if West has Qxx.

The problem here is that the opening lead does not look like a 4th-highest lead from a 4-card suit and I would (wrongly, as it happens) have tentatively placed East with at least 5, if not 6 Diamonds. Because of that I (personally) think you have to go for this all out. I think I would have crossed to the Ace of Diamonds at trick 2 and run the Jack of Spades, West does, in fact, have Qxx and   QJxx, and in the end-game you can end-play them in Clubs to lead away from the King of Hearts for an overtrick.

Eszter's line was no less successful: At trick 2 she played Ace, King and a 3rd Club. West took her 2 Club tricks and, no doubt thinking Declarer had the Diamonds sewn up, obligingly exited with the Queen of Spades. Eszter took the Ace of Spades and then the J10 of Spades in Dummy and then a small Heart from Dummy. no doubt thinking East must have something in Hearts, West hopped up with the King. Eszter took the Ace of Hearts and cashed the King of Spades.

Actually if Eszter had read the spot cards well enough, she might have realised that East was mercillessly squeezed in the red suits on this trick. East was holding onto J10 (having previously discarded the 9) and K 10 (having previously discarded the at this juncture and had to discard in front of Dummy's Q8 and A6. Whatever suit East discarded, Declarer can discard from the other red suit in Dummy and make the last 3 tricks for +460 and an outright top, when most Pairs were going off in 3NT on this hand, no doubt on an initial Heart lead from East (who had started with J1095).

There is no doubt that the successful line on a lead is to cross immediately over to the Ace and run the Jack of Spades. Whether that is a priori the best line I'm not quite so certain, because if the Spsde finesse loses, the Diamonds will be wide open, and we definitely don't want a switch from East unless they have the King.

Any other ideas?

Had an interesting session with Eszter earlier today, in which we bid not one but two Grand Slams.

(1) What's the Best Line?

NS Game, Dealer North

South (Dummy)
KQ62
AQ97
A104
KJ

North
AJ103
1054
8
AQ984

Bidding
North       East       South        West
2           No         2            No
2           No         3 (1)       No
4 (2)      No         4 (3)       No
4NT(4)      No         5 (5)       No
6 (6)      X           7            X
All Pass

(1) Eta in Spades
(2) KJxx
(3) Relay Beta
(4) 4 Controls
(5) Epsilon in Clubs
(6) AQxxx

Without the Double of 6 I would probably have gone quietly in 6 , but that persuaded me (correctly) that Eszter was more likely to have a singleton Diamond. I think if I had been Declarer the double of 7 would definitely have persuaded me that West held the King of Hearts so, rightly or wrongly, I wouldn't have taken the line Eszter took (which is a perfectly reasonable line apart from that double of 7 ). No blame to Eszter for the result here:

Eszter won the opening lead, draw two rounds of trumps, cashed the KJ of Clubs, then a 3rd round of trumps to her hand. Now she cashed the rest of the Clubs, throwing 2 Hearts and a Diamond from Dummy, and then took the Heart finesse for her 13th trick. Unfortunately, the finesse lost.

My preferred line would have been slightly different: After winning the opening lead I'd have ruffed a Diamond, crossed back to the King and ruffed another Diamonds. Now the Ace of Spades, J overtaken (if East follows) and run all of the Spades, discarding Hearts from my hand. Lastly the J overtaken with the Ace, and hope for 3-3 or 4-2 with the 10 doubleton. If that doesn't work, I can still fall back on the Heart finesse but I need East to have the KJ).

Both Eszter line and mine need the Spades 3-2. Overall I think my line works out at about 76% (36%+16%+24%) rather than Eszter's 50%, but I'm not a expert statistician . Probably I should have just stuck with 6 , which is child's play.


(2) Picking the Right One
You've seen examples of this kind of hand in some of my teaching sessions. Here is one from real life. You are South:

South
K932
KJ93
AK8
A5

EW Game, Dealer North

Bidding (No opposition interference)
North       South
1            1NT
2            3 ⁽¹⁾
3 ⁽²⁾       3NT⁽³⁾
4 ⁽⁴⁾       5 ⁽⁵⁾
6 ⁽⁶⁾       7 ⁽⁷⁾
All Pass

(1) Gamma in
(2) HHxxx or HHHxx
(3) Relay Beta
(4) 4 Controls
(5) Epsilon in Hearts
(6) AQxx
(7) To Play (can't really be anything else, certainly not a repeat Epsilon looking for the Jack). Hearts is the only makeable Grand. I don't need to know how Eszter's Minors are distributed, but I do need her 5th Spade to discard one losing Minor card from my hand. This Grand doesn't work if we play it in Spades, only in Hearts.

East led the 6 and Eszter was looking at

South (Dummy)
K932
KJ93
AK8
A5

6 led

North
AQ1087
AQ86
72
82

Eszter won the opening lead and drew trumps in three rounds, West discarding a Club on the 3rd round. Now she carefully cashed the Ace of Spades. This was critical, because she can catch Jxxx in either hand, so it was crucial to cash a Spade first from the North Hand. This care was rewarded when West showed out, and now it was a simple matter to play the Quee, take the marked finesse against the Jack, Cash the King, AK , ruff a Diamond, throw Dummy's losing Club on the long Spade and ruff her losing Club. Well done Eszter!

I wasn't thinking about 7 initially. If I had thought about it, I might well have spared Eszter the mental effort required to pass 7 , by making my initial Gamma in Hearts rather than Spades, so now 1 - 1NT - 2 - 3 (Gamma ) - 3NT(HHxx) - 4 (Beta) - 4 (4) - 5 (Eps) - 6NT(AQxxx) - 7 - Pass. If Eszter doesn't have the Queen of Spades, she'll bid 6 rather than 6NT and I just let her play there and hope she finds the Queen.

Over the two Grand Slams we made a massive profit of ½ IMP

For me, it's a matter of pride (at IMPs) to try to safely make the maximum number of tricks I can. Take this hand (You are West, playing OCP)

NS Vulnerable, Dealer East

Bidding
East       South        West       North
No          No             1          1
X            No             1NT         No
2         No             2         All Pass

East (Dummy)
A10962
108532
J
94

West (You)
J84
AQ7
AK9
A1073

North leads a small Diamond and Dummy's Jack holds the trick, an unexpected bonus, but it doesn't really add to your trick-taking potential and unfortunately now you can see you are in grave danger of making far too many tricks. If one of the Spade honours is with North, you might make 11 tricks, but you've stopped short of game. The real bonus is that you've acquired an easy entry to Dummy, which will allow you an early Heart finesse.

There's absolutely nothing wrong in taking the Heart finesse and you easily come to 10 tricks if you do just that. My pride in getting the maximum number of tricks led me in a different direction, because I was fairly certain that missing the AKJ of his Suit, North would almost certainly have most of the rest of the outstanding high cards. That in turn made me think he probably had the stiff King of Hearts or Kx.

At trick 2, I played a small Heart from Dummy and instead of inserting the Queen, I took the Ace (Opps both followed low), cashed the Ace of Diamonds, discarding a Club from Dummy, Cashed the ace of Clubs and ruffed a Club in Dummy. Now I led a Heart towards my remaining Qx, and When South played the 9 I ducked. North had the King left but it hit thin air. North exited with the King of Spades, but now I could win in Dummy, draw the last trump and then play on Spades for 11 tricks. This was only worth about half an IMP, because several Pairs did reach game on this hand, but I did have the satisfaction of being the only person playing in Hearts or Spades to make 11 tricks.

As an aside, this emphasises the danger of overcalling 1 on the North hand (North held KQ7, K4, Q7543, K62). Firstly it's a horrible suit, you're vulnerable against not, and you potentially have a fair amount of defensive strength, especially sat over the 1 Bidder. Secondly, it gave me the clue I needed to safety-play the Hearts, something I wouldn't probably have considered doing if North had stayed silent, so it cost North a trump trick suring the play (If I take the Heart finesse, I absolutely have to lose 2 trump tricks, as the cards lie). Lastly, The Diamond bid from North might well cause East to upgrade their hand because of their singleton Diamond and invite game (and I wouldn't need much of an invitation to bid game). I accuse Eszter (who was sat East) of being a bit of a wimp at times, but even she must have been considering doing something other than passing 2 .

One other thing: I feel Eszter didn't quite bid this right. Once I bid 1NT over her double of 1 , I feel she can afford to transfer into Spades and then rebid the Hearts at the 3-level. Because I know she only has 5-7 hcp, this can hardly have the game-forcing nature that such a sequence would normally have, so it merely becomes invitational, and probably with 5-5 in the Majors. I might be expecting 7 hcp from here, but the singleton Diamond makes up for that. Now we would get to 4 and 11 tricks in 4 would have been worth 6 IMPs rather than a fraction of an IMP.

Someone complimented me on this hand, saying that it was as if I could see through the backs of Opps' cards. That wasn't the case, I assure you, but I was firmly convinced that North had the King of Hearts. If he had started with KJx and South with 9x I'm always losing 2 Heart tricks, whatever line I take, but crucially, when North started with K or Kx in Hearts, my line saves a trick. It made precious little difference to our score on this hand, but if you don't exercise your bridge techniques, they'll get rusty and you might not think of this sort of thing when it really does make a difference (eg: you're in 5 rather than 2 ).

I'm not sure I can convince you guys apart from repeating this sort of thing ad nauseam: You have got to spend a few seconds before playing each and every hand to think about the hand. Just think about the hand for a few seconds. Count your tricks and if the number you get to is insufficient, figure out how you might be able to acquire the additional trick or tricks. Make a Plan and don't play a single card before you've  arrived at a plan.

The plan you make is not, as I have said before, set in concrete and can be flexible according to how the play goes. Plans often go stray and need revising, but if you don't have a plan in your head when you start playing to the first trick(s), the chances are that you'll just wander aimlessly about the hand until you go off.

Take this really simple hand, which was a very good example of exactly this happening:

NS Game, Dealer North

South (Dummy)
  10
  Q87
  Q10653
  K643

North (You)
  J52
  AK953
  2
  AQ102

You and Partner (me) have had a simple but effective OCP auction 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 and you can see that this is a really good 21-HCP game that quite a few people will not reach. Moreover, 4 is likely to be a very good sacrifice but Opps have never got into the auction. East leads a small Spade to West's King. West switches to a small Heart. You play low from hand and take East's Jack with Dummy's Queen. How do you plan the play from here?

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Well clearly you've landed in a decent contract even if sub-minimum for points. 5 Hearts, 4 Clubs if they behave, and...

...hmmmm. Not much chance of establishing the Diamonds so where is our 10th trick coming from? The utterly obvious place is from a Spade ruff (which is why West has switched to a Heart at trick 2, of course, in the hope that any ruffing of Spades you can do is going to be reduced). In practice we only need one Spade ruff to get our 10 tricks. What is the safest way to proceed? A Heart back top hand at trick 3 (everyone follows so we know the are 3-2). Now  ruff a Spade in Dummy, cross back to hand with the Ace of Clubs, draw the last trump, cross back to the King of Clubs and, when everyone follows to the second Club, claim our 10 tricks.

That line, a priori, has about a 90% chance of succeeding. It loses only when East has J9xx. The possibility of Clubs being 5-0 (with the person having the void Club also having the last Heart) is small enough that we can dismiss it (if it happens it happens).

Eszter got as far as crossing back to hand with a second round of trumps, but didn't bother with the Spade ruff. She just drew the 3rd round of trumps and now was inevitably 1 down, which lost us -5½ IMPs on the Board rather than gaining us nearly 10 IMPs.

I feel sure that Eszter would have thought about ruffing a Spade if she had spent just 10 seconds right at the start of the hand, counting her likely tricks, realising she would be one short, and coming up with the obvious plan for a 10th trick. Nothing cimplicated. No abstruse squeezes or throw-ins. No need for brain-wearying counting of the hand. Just "5+4 doesn't add up to 10".

I think OCP users are probably guilty of Burns Law Violations more often than most, especially after a 1 Opening. That was certainly true on this hand:

Love All, Dealer South
I opened 1 on

South
  AK
  Q95
  732
  AQ742

...and that ended the auction. West led the 6 , and this is what I could see:

North
  J976
  J874
  A105
  103

South
  AK
  Q95
  732
  AQ742

East won the first trick with the King, cashed the Ace (West showed out and discarded a small Club) and now a 3rd Hearts ruffed by West with the 4. Since the likelyhood was that West had at least 4 Diamonds, he was happy to trump as many Hearts as he liked, from my viewpoint. West exited with a small Spade to East's 8 and my King. I suppose it might have been smart at this stage to cash my Ace of Spades as well, but I decided not to (You'll see why it might have been the smart thing to do in a minute LOL).

Instead, I crossed to the Ace of Diamonds (both Opps followed low) and led the Jack of Hearts, discarding a small Club from hand. West ruffed with the Queen and then cashed the King of Diamonds (everyone followed low).

The reason why I might have cashed the Ace of Spades earlier was now important, because at this stage West could comfortably have exited with a Spade to my Ace, leaving me with an inescapable Club loser. Of course he could have exited with a Spade regardless, and the point is that I really wanted a Club lead from him here. Getting a Club lead from West was the whole point about the hand to this stage, from my viewpoint. With West having AKxxx in Hearts, I didn't think he's have much more or he'd surely have protected. Maybe not cashing the Ace of Spades was the right thing to do, because now West might be wary of leading another Spade in case I had started with AKx and could win the Jack on table.


Anyway, West let me off and led a Club to Partner's Jack and my Queen. Now I could cash the Ace of Clubs (everyone followed, and ruff a Club with Dummy's last trump. This last trick brought down West's King of Clubs, and East overruffed with the Jack of Diamonds, but it didn't matter, because now I had the last trump, the Ace of Spades and good Clubs.

1 making gave us a surprisingly good (if modest) result of +3 IMPs. Not surprisingly, nobody else played the hand in Diamonds and a number of NS Pairs were going down in 1NT or 2 , 3 and 2 . West started with Q1042, 6, KQ84, A986, and East with 853, AK1032, J96, J5. The Club discard by West on the second Heart proved to be an expensive one.

Saw this hand played today (no names, no pack drill LOL). You really need to think out your defence: Love all, Dealer South. you are North, playing OCP:

North
K52
2
QJ763
A543

Bidding
South      West      North      East
No            No          1          1
X              2         2NT         3
All Pass

Partner leads the King and you can see this:

                     West (Dummy)
                      Q86
                      K75
                      1098
                      10976
North
K52
2
QJ763
A543
You encourage, but Declarer wins the Ace, and plays Ace and another Spade. Partner plays the 9 and then the Jack and you take Dummy's Queen with your King. How do you plan your defence?

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.
.

Clearly Partner started with a stiff King of Diamonds or the King doubleton and exactly J9 in Spades. They might have started with QJxx(x) in Hearts, so they probably have at least KJxx in Clubs. Declarer is likely to have least 4-card Hearts and either 4-card Diamonds or a 5th Heart. There's not much that can be done about the times when Opener started with AQ10xx in Hearts, but you can and must cater for the time when Declarer started with Axxx. Quick as a flash (about one nanosecond after taking the King) your 5 should hit the table, because the real danger to your defence is when Partner had the singleton King and Declarer might be able to either ruff a Diamond. If you don't take the trump off the table sooner rather than later, you may provide them with their 9th trick. In fact it doesn't matter if you try something like the Ace of Clubs first, because you have 2 chances to play a Spade. but play a Spade you must, before Declarer has a chance to ruff the 4th round of Diamonds.

At the table North cashed the QJ of Diamonds (Partner showing out on the 2nd round) and then led a 4th round, as if Partner might have a trump left (which they couldn't reasonably have, given the bidding). This gave Declarer (who had started out with A10xxx, AQ10x, Axxx, -) their 9th trick and something like an 8 IMP difference on a Board, in a match that was decided by less than that.

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter whether or not you manage to determine exactly what Declarer's or Partner's shape is. You should, however, be taking Dummy's last trump out of the equation just on general principles, because it prevents Dummy from possibly contributing any further tricks to Declarer's total.