Hi All,

This was a very instructive hand I came up against earlier today while playing with Servet.
You are South at Green vs Red and end up in 3NT after the following auction:

North
982
A95
94
AJ1074

South
K4
QJ7
A102
KQ985

Bidding:
North     East    South    West
No          1      1NT       No
3NT       All Pass

Yes, my 1NT was a little pushy, but Servet's 3NT was bang on.
West led the Jack which did not look too promising for the Diamonds splitting 4-4. That won the first trick, East's King took the second round and East then continued the 7 on the 3rd round, West following with the 3 and then the 6, while I discarded a Spade from Dummy on the 3rd round. How do you take stock of the hand? At first sight it looks fairly hopeless as Opps will almost certainly make 3 Diamonds, a Spade and a Heart.

Well firstly, you have to make the assumption that the Diamonds really are 4-4, because on the bidding East surely has the Ace and King to go along with the KQ. If East has 5-card Diamonds you are definitely off. In retrospect the best tactic here is to play a Club to the 10 and lead a Spade, because East is more likely to hold up their Ace (which is essential for you) if you play a Spade early on.

I decided to put them under a little pressure first, however, and get a better count on the hand so I played 4 rounds of Clubs ending in Dummy, to which West played 2 Clubs and 2 Hearts and East played 1 Club, 2 Hearts and a Spade.

East had to be 4441 and West 4342 to start with if our assumption about the Diamonds is correct. Now I played a Spade and went up with the King with East played low. Now I had him: I cashed my 5th round of Clubs (East throwing a Spade) and then exited with a Spade to endplay him. He could take his Queen, but then had to lead away from Kx.

A simple enough endplay but easy to miss if you're not counting the hand. Once you make the assumption that the 's have to be 4-4 that really limits the number of HCP that West can have when they do not bid 2 with 4-card support for partner, which 100% rules out them having the King. When they show up with the Jack at trick 1, the most they can have is the Jack or possibly the Queen of Spades. Also, once East shows up with only 1 Club, they have to be exactly 4441 if you assumption about the Diamonds is correct or they would have opened a 5-card Major. Once you have that straight it's easy to count their discards and even drop their King if they get tricky and blank it in order to keep 3 Spades.

A better player than the East I faced might well have discarded 3 small Hearts and only a single Spade on the last Club to try to fool you into taking the finesse. They would certainly have spotted the endplay coming a mile away and gone up with the Ace on the first Spade trick, cashing the Queen and then exiting with a Spade to wait for their trick. You have to give Opps a chance to go wrong when the situation seems hopeless, though.

The full hand: https://tinyurl.com/yyztts6n

Playing in tempo can be extremely important. Sometimes the slightest hesitation can give the game away, and your subtle subterfuges will all come to naught. Often you have to try to anticipate what might happen so that you can be ready to play in tempo so as not to give the game away. Holding up your King with Kx when Dummy holds AQJxxx in a suit with no side entries is a well known ploy (when you think Declarer only has 2 of the suit).

Another situation came up today in a hand I played with oktay. You are North, the Dealer at Game All. You are holding

North
  A432
  Q7
  QJ3
  J954

After 2 passes, partner opens a weak 2 . This is passed round to East, who protects with 3 , and West's 3NT ends the auction. You select the Queen as your opening lead and Dummy goes down. This is what you can see:

East (Dummy)
  Q65
  9
  K94
  KQ10872

                North
                A432
                Q7
                QJ3
                J954

Using o/e signals, Partner plays the 4 on trick 1, which Declarer wins in hand with the King. Declarer cashes the Ace (Partner contributes the 3) and then tanks for half a minute. What are you thinking about in the meantime?

The play at trick 1 suggests that Declarer has AKxx or AK10x. You know about the Ace, but the current pause suggests that Declarer started with the stiff Ace, as otherwise his second Club would have hit the table already. Declarer will also have either the Ace or the King, but probably not both of those cards, or Partner will have opened vulnerable with something like a 2-count. If Partner has the King then you cannot prevent an entry to Dummy in Diamonds, but if Partner has the Diamond Ace, the whole hand might revolve around trying to prevent Declarer from reaching Dummy with the Queen. It's entirely possible that the hand is going off whatever the position, because you know Declarer probably only has 1 entry to Dummy, and the Clubs are not going to run, and if Declarer has the King you cannot prevent them from reaching Dummy with the Queen, but you need to work the hand out as best you can.

After his tank, Declarer plays the King. If you hesitate, even for a moment, especially if you going to duck, then you've given the game away, because you only have something to think about if you have the Ace. If you end up taking the trick, a pause doesn't matter, but a pause before ducking is foolish. oktay thought for about 10 seconds and then ducked.

As it happened, Declarer was clearly not paying any attention, because he then played the 10 and then, after another pause, ran it and lost to partner's Jack. A 3rd Spade went to your Ace (all following) and you could cash your 4th Spade (Dummy & Declarer discarding Diamonds and Partner a Heart) before leading the Queen, allowing partner to take Declarer's King with their Ace and return a Diamond to your Jack. You exit with your 3rd Diamond and Declarer has to concede 1 Heart trick to South for -2.

This contract was probably doomed from the start, but you have to realise that You can work out that Partner has the Ace or the King, but Declarer cannot be sure. From their viewpoint South might or might not have the Ace and/or the Ace, so best to keep them guessing.

Metin and I had a chuckle about this hand, which played quite nicely (with a little help from Opps): You're North, the Dealer, with NS Vulnerable. You open 1 (Complex Sys) and this is passed out. East leads the King and this is what you can see:

South (Dummy)
J642
86
102
KQJ42

King led

North
105
A95
A95
A8763

Not promising - this could easily end up as -3 if Opps attack trumps.

Metin took the first trick and exited with a Heart. East won and obligingly continued the suit, allowing Dummy to ruff. Metin exited with a small Spade to his 10 and East's King. East even more obligingly played a 4th round of Hearts allowing Dummy to ruff and Declarer to discard his other losing Spade.

Now a Spade ruff, a Club to Dummy's King and a second Spade ruff allowed Metin to make every single one of his trumps separately. That rare score of +70 was worth 2.2 IMPs even though 3 is trivially easy, because 10 tricks in Hearts are fairly easy for EW whether they bid game or not.

Ok, this needed a lot of help from East but there is something very pleasing about escaping the hangman

Eszter shone in her play of this tricky hand. You are North at Love All and the bidding has gone:

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

East led the 6 and this is what Eszter could see:

South (Dummy)
J10
QJ2
J109532
Q6

North
AQ84
A54
8
A10832

Yes, it could have been worse but it was clear East had a Club stack and a Diamond shortage. West took the opening lead and continued with the Ace. Eszter ruffed low and was overruffed by East, who exited with a small Heart, which went Queen, King, Ace. Eszter wisely resisted the urge to do anything with trumps early on, crossed back to the Jack and led the Jack. West covered and Eszter took her Ace.

Now Eszter led a small Club. East played low and West's singleton Jack fell under the Queen. Eszter cashed the 10 and exited with a Heart, which was won by East's 9 (Given East's lead of a small Heart earlier, West probably thought this was getting ruffed, but I think they should have risen with the 10 regardless).

East was now comprehensively endplayed. He tried exiting with the 9, but Eszter won her 10 and then played the Queen and exited with her last Spade to endplay East again for a valuable doubled overtrick.

Well played! The trick here was to resist the urge to play on trumps too early and then to only lead them once. East was always going to be vulnerable to being endplayed by their own trump length.

I wouldn't say it's a "requirement", even now. The idea behind the suggested holding for a redouble is that a 6-1 or 7-0 opposing trump split might cause opener some problems in 1MXX even if we definitely hold the balance of the HCP and the opposing long trumps are under Declarer. Obviously Responder won't be better then Hx in Opener's Major, but we also want to be sure that 1MXX is going to make.

" As far as I'm concerned (and I first wore a TD's hat in 1976) the rules on disclosure ARE strict. "

Amen to that! <here insert a choir of heavenly angels singing something suitably angelic >

Anti-system or not, Brian, it's just plain common-sense. I do exactly the same with that hand type. The fundamental point here is that if Opener has shown an intermediate hand, the basic principal is that they cannot initiate a game-forcing sequence and in most instances cannot initiate any kind of forcing sequence except maybe an occasional bid that is forcing for 1 round (eg: new suit at the 3-level), but the likelyhood is that even there the whole sequence will probably be forcing because of a bid that Responder has made.


Yes, Jimmy, Responder (and Opener) should keep the bidding open if they think their hand warrants it, but that's a million miles away from the sequence being forcing.