Last Monday Anna went to play at Buchanan Bridge Club with Heather, while I dutifully stayed at home with the baby. Afterwards Anna brought home a copy of the hand records "so Danny could point out what I did wrong".
As I looked pored over the scores, one immediately stood out. I've never seen a hand before where declarer took zero tricks!
Anna had the monster South hand. She said that she considered opening 2♣, but the hand isn't strong enough (I think you're supposed to have 16+ HCP). The other option is 1♠, which is very unlikely to be passed out, but you'd be upset if that did happen when you've ten top tricks. She opened 4♠, which is a wide ranging, though not normally this strong. West overcalled 4NT, showing minors (for us it's any two-suiter). North was very disciplined and passed, but so did East! I guess she thought that since 4♠ could be weak the 4NT was natural. When it got back round to Anna she of course passed 4NT too, expecting to make loads of Spades tricks.
In fact, North lead out nine top Hearts, then found the Club switch so Anna took the last four. None for declarer. 4NT-10, vulnerable, was a great score for the defence. However, as you can imagine, this deal produced a wide variety of scores and +1000 was not the top score. One pair (Norman) go to 7♥, which made when East didn't know what to lead. Everyone playing in Spades made 11 tricks as West was able to cash two Diamonds.
Overall, Anna and Heather did very well, finishing 2nd out of 12 pairs. But with careful scrutiny I did manage to find one hand where they could have done better. How would you play 3NT here, when East leads a top Club?
You have eight top tricks, and are looking for a ninth, without letting East back in. After winning the third Club declarer made the natural play of a Heart finesse, leading up to the ♥J. When that lost West played a top Spade, which declarer won and now it's crunch time. You've already lost three tricks (two Clubs and a Heart) and if you finesse Hearts again by leading the ♥9 and that loses to West that's four tricks lost already, with the ♠Q still to come. So declarer played Hearts from the top, hoping they were 3-3 or the ten dropped, and when that failed she was doomed.
In fact, a better line after winning the ♣A is to play on Spades immediately. You finesse twice, and even if it loses twice (as it does here) you have still set up an extra Spade winner, which along with your eight top tricks gives you the contract. This is aggregate scoring, so no prizes for overtricks. The only thing that could go wrong with this line is if East has both the missing top Spades (which is unlikely since she didn't overcall 2♣) in which case you can decide to switch back to taking the Heart finesse.
So a missed opportunity. I like to think if I was playing we would have made this contract, and kept all of the other good results so came 1st overall (I'm assuming of course I wouldn't add any bodges, which is unlikely).
I think I'd have opened the big hand 2C. First, it actually does have 16 high card points, and second, it has significantly more than 25 for the rule of 25 (http://www.ebu.co.uk/documents/laws-and-ethics/blue-book/blue-book.pdf):
ReplyDelete"Strong openings are often described as ‘Extended Rule of 25’ which means the minimum
allowed is any one or more of:
(a) any hand of at least 16 HCP, or
(b) any hand meeting the Rule of 25, or
(c) subject to proper disclosure, a hand that contains at least the normal high-card strength associated with a one-level opening and at least eight clear cut tricks.
On the second hand, I don't think it's quite as clear as you say that playing on spades is better, but I'm sure you should finesse in hearts again after you've done it once (I'm pretty sure you should just run the 9 on the first round, but I can't actually work out why that makes a difference).
ReplyDeleteIn one case you lose if West has both missing heart honours, and in the other you lose if East has both spade honours, although you're probably right that the latter is slightly less likely given the lack of a 2C overcall (assuming that was an option), plus vacant spaces.
If East plays a top Spade on the first round you can win and go back to taking a Heart finesse. You'll only go down if both Spades are offside and the Heart finesse fails.
Delete