A Tricky Contract

[OliverC]

This was a really interesting hand Eszter and I played yesterday. Positions switched for ease of reference

EW Game, Dealer North

North
  K10
  AJ6543
  A5
  A83

South
  AQ872
  K7
  Q963
  76

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

(1) Alpha in
(2) No Support, 0-3 Controls
(3) Gamma in
(4) HHxxx or HHHxx in

I was North. After the negative response to my Alpha in Hearts, I decided to forget them (it was a fairly anaemic suit) and go for Partner's Spades.

West led the King against 4 . You take Dummy's Ace (East playing a small Club). How do you plan the play? If the Spades are behaving not too bad, then the Hearts probably aren't, and vice versa, since it looks like West has 7-card Clubs. Either way, East almost certainly has the length in Diamonds, so it's reasonable at this stage to place the King with them.

Eszter decided to play East for something like Jxxx  and played to pin the 9 in the West hand. She played a Spade to Dummy's King and then ran the 10 on the next round. That's a reasonable enough shot, but didn't come off on this occasion, since West had Jxx.

I feel that probably that's a case of putting most of your eggs in one basket, because you can't afford to willingly let West back in to cash another Club and then force us in Clubs. If The Spades are 4-2 and East gets a Spade trick, it's unlikely thatthey can do you much damage because (1) they probably don't have another Club, (2) we've provisionally placed them with the Diamonds, and (3) they can't hurt you in Hearts either.

Anyway, West wins the Jack of Spades, cashes the Queen of Clubs (East discards a Diamond), and then the Jack of Clubs (East discards another Diamond and you ruff). A third round of Spades now reveals the 3-3 split. The big question now is what you discard from Dummy on the 3rd Spade.

This was Eszter's crucial error, I feel. She discarded Dummy's losing Diamond, pinning all of her hopes on a 3-2 Heart split, but I feel that is ignoring the evidence from the opening lead, the bidding, and what she knows of the hand so far:

• We know West started with 7 Clubs and 3 Spades and so only 3 red cards
• If West started with 2 Hearts, that gives then a singleton Diamond and they would probably have tried for a Diamond ruff at trick 1 rather than leading the King.
• If West has 2 Diamonds, that means the Hearts are 4-1, probably with East holding Q10xx

You can't, therefore, afford to discard a Diamond from Dummy. Even if the Hearts do turn out to be 3-2, you only need 2 discards on the Hearts to make your contract, but if they're 4-1, as seems likely, you will need to be able to lead a Diamond towards your Queen. East has already discarded 2 Diamonds, so there is a decent chance of establishing your Diamonds if the Diamonds were 5-2 originally (because they're now 3-2, East having discarded a couple).

So now cash the King of Hearts (West plays the 9), and try a Hearts towards the Ace (West discards a Club). Now you know you can forget the Hearts and Play Ace and another Diamond. Knowing East started with 5 Diamonds, it's definitely with the odds to place them with the King. Their Diamond discards don't really mean anything in that respect, because they can't afford to discard a Heart, ever. If East goes up with the King, the rest are yours. If they don't, win the Queen and clear the Diamonds.

[Jimmy]

Hello Oliver,   

I have a couple of questions about the bidding on this hand.

 First,  a quick comment about the final contract.  In our system (I&J Strong Club) we probably would have ended up in 3NT or 4H (since opener has 6 hearts).  Maybe 4 spades but not very likely.   

The bidding questions are:

1.  Why is 2H Alpha in Hearts?  That is not in the guidelines for an Alpha Bid.  The guidelines say after 1C and 1H, 1S response.  It does not say 1NT.  I assume that is a typo. 

2.  How does the OCP system account for hands that do not have enough points for slam investigation?  There are times when opener has 16 or 17 points and responder has 8-9 points. How does OCP deal with that situation.  In this case should opener have passed the 2C overcall to show responder that he/she has a minimum opening?

3.  After a 1c opening and a positive response are there any rebids that are not Asking Bids?   I thought asking bids were only used when either opener or responder thinks that there is sufficient cause to investigate slam. 

Hope I am not showing my ignorance of the system.   

[OliverC]

Hi Jimmy,


We might have ended up in 4 , but certainly not 3NT which is dead on the water if neither the Spades or Hearts are distributed nicely. Given the negative response to Alpha, I decided to forget my anaemic Hearts and go for the Spades. In Hearts you absolutely need the Spades 3-3 because otherwise you've no entry to Dummy to enjoy them once trumps have been drawn

• I don't know which guidelines you're looking at. A simple new suit over a positive response to 1 is Alpha, except for the relay Low Betas over a 1NT, 2 and 2 response and then 2NT is Alpha in the Relay Suit.  An Alpha in any suit is always available over any positive response to 1 , except for over the 4441 positives.
• No, because Opener passing the 2 overcall in this situation would have been immediately asking about Responder's Spades (You need to have a look at the section on interference during Asking Bid sequences. After 1 - 1 - (??) a pass by Opener is fairly normal if they have 16-18 balanced. Aside from that, a game-forcing positive response is game-forcing, pure and simple. There's no going back from that.
• In essence, no. Opener has the option to discontinue Asking Bids by using the 2NT "Handing over the Captaincy" sequence, but even that is only available after a low Beta has been used, or over 2-level interference