Too Bad

I'm playing in a regional Swiss. Despite winning our first two matches, we draw a journeyman team in the third match. I'm dealer and pick up a very good hand,  S:AJ5 H:Q D:A84 C:AKQ853. It's not quite good enough to open 2C:, and it's complicated, so I open 1C:. LHO overcalls 1H:, and partner raises to 2C:. RHO passes, and I have an easy cue bid. LHO isn't through; he confidently competes to 3H:, passed to me. Partner and I play that returning to our forced level is weaker than pass, but I don't think that applies here. It would have if LHO had doubled 2H:; then 3C: is weaker than pass. Regardless, it seems as if partner does not have a heart stop, but he could still hold D:KQJxx and out or even more than that, so I have to try for slam. Upon reflection, I wish I had jump cued last round, making it clear that I'm short in hearts. That's water under the bridge, so now I simply re-cue 4H:. Partner returns to 5C:, so I have to give up. It has been an interesting auction; it's not everyday that the auction goes 1H:-2H:-3H:-4H: between me and my LHO.

LHO leads a high heart, and I see that partner had his bidding shoes on.

S: 42
H: 963
D: KJ75
C: 9742
S: AJ5
H: Q
D: A84
C: AKQ853
DeclarerLHODummyRHO
1C:1H:2C:Pass
2H:3H:PassPass
4H:Pass5C:All Pass
RHO contributes the H:J to Trick 1. Without much thought, LHO continues with the S:K. I'm happy to duck this; nothing bad can happen. LHO thinks about this a while and continues with a small heart. I play low and RHO plays his H:10 as I ruff.

At first glance, it looks like I have at least a red suit show-up squeeze for my 11th trick, but there's not much chance that LHO has four diamonds. I need to draw trumps and ruff a spade; let's see what I learn when that happens. I draw two rounds of trumps and ruff the spade in dummy. LHO started with the singleton C:J and follows to three rounds of spades. He appears to have started with S:KQ10, but I haven't seen the S:9, so it's possible that he has four spades. Probably, however, he has either 3721 or 3631. I suspect the former, as he bid a lot with a moderate suit. And with only six hearts, he might have continued with the H:8 to protect partner's H:10. Regardless, I can run some trumps and see what gets pitched. On the next two rounds of trumps, RHO pitches a heart and a spade. That makes it clear that LHO started with 3631. The position is

S: ---
H: 9
D: KJ7
C: ---
S: ---
H: A
D: ???
C: ---
S: 9
H: ---
D: ???
C: ---
S: ---
H: ---
D: A84
C: 3
I'm not going to have to take a diamond finesse, so I might as well play the last trump. LHO pitches a diamond, of course, so I release the H:9. RHO perforce pitches the last spade, so he is down to three diamonds.

Since LHO has only two diamonds, there's no reason to cash the D:A, so I play a small diamond. He inserts the D:9, and now, as I expected, I have a problem. I win the D:K and take stock. If LHO started with D:109x, I can run the D:J. If he started with D:Q9x, I need to drop the D:Q. A priori, it's 2-1 that LHO has the D:Q, since he could have been dealt D:Q10x or D:Q9x, and he could have played the 10 or 9 from D:109x. It's much more fun to play for the squeeze—if LHO has the D:Q, I make on a simple finesse—but I want to get it right. Did LHO start with  S:KQ10 H:AK87xx D:109x C:J or  S:KQ10 H:AK87xx D:Q9x C:J? He doesn't really have his bids with either of those, but the latter is a 15-count, and it seems substantially more likely that he took a second bid with the second hand, so I try to drop the D:Q. That works, and I make 5C:.

It's too bad that the squeeze cum backwards finesse didn't pan out; that was a neat end position. Even so, this hand was fun both in the bidding and play.


Copyright © 2014 Jeff Goldsmith