Hilo Bridge Club Updates
From a recent hand on BBO: You are South in four spades. West leads the queen of clubs. Here is your hand and dummy:
It looks like you will make at least five spades. But you are playing a pairs game (which means matchpoint scoring), so it would be nice to make six. How are you going to play for 12 tricks? Hint: Note that West overcalled 2 ♥ in direct seat.
Steve Bartholomew recently emailed me some declarer play puzzles from Victor Mollo’s book I Challenge You. (Thanks, Steve.) Mollo’s challenge is to use readily available clues to guide your declarer play. Mollo says at the outset, “there’s nothing up my sleeve, no traps for the unwary, and above all, no abstruse conventions in the bidding to obscure the clarity of the play”.
Here, for example, is the first puzzle:
West leads out the ace, king, queen of spades. You ruff the 3rd spade in hand. How are you going to play from here to make the contract?
Scroll down for the solution:
It’s a near certainty that East has the ace of clubs and King of diamonds (West did not open the bidding). Lead your singleton club and put in the 10. If it loses to the jack, there is nothing East can do to hurt you. When you get to dummy again you will take ruffing finesses against East’s ace of clubs to discard your two losing diamonds.
Did I say, “when you get to dummy again”? You did not lazily ruff that third spade with the heart seven, did you? Of course not, you saw the need to preserve the eight of hearts as an entry to dummy. The eight is equal to the ace in its trick taking power against opponents holding of deuce through six of hearts.
Here is a somewhat difficult declarer problem from a recent hand I observed on BBO. You are South with the hand and bidding shown:
Opening lead is the eight of diamonds. How many losers do you have and how are you going to handle the trump suit?
You have one or two losers in clubs. After you take the ace and king of diamonds you may be able to ruff a diamond loser or two. After you win the ace of hearts you may be able to ruff a heart loser or two. Spades look like they can come in with no losers if you get the likely 3-2 break.
Since it looks like you are going to have to do some ruffing of red suit cards, maybe you should not get in a rush to draw trump.
Say you draw two rounds of trump. Now you can ruff two heart losers in hand. That would get you to 10 tricks as long as the ace of clubs is onside.
It looks best to ignore trumps from the get go. Cash the ace of hearts at trick two. Ruff a heart. Cash the king of diamonds. Ruff a diamond. Ruff a heart. Ruff a diamond. You are almost assured of 10 tricks.
The hand will make five spades against perfect defense. It’s a nice double dummy problem. Here is the entire hand if you would like to give it a try:
Declarers who drew three round of trump went down one.
In our game it’s often hard to avoid playing by instinct. I recently made an instinctual misplay at trick one when West led the seven of hearts on this hand:
My instinct was “oh, goodie – a free finesse!” I played low from dummy. Only as I was about to lead to trick two did I contemplate how to play trumps should they break 4-1. It was too late. I needed to win trick one in dummy and cash the queen of spades. Then I can come to hand in hearts at trick two and draw trumps.
BTW, assuming I had played correctly at trick one, how are you going to play the minor suits? You know where the heart queen is, right? Yes, right!
You are in three diamonds (both vul) as South. North had a difficult decision after West’s preempt and reasonably chose to respond three diamonds. That’s where the bidding ended:
West led the ace of spades, South playing the Jack and you the six (trying to hide the spade situation from West). West continued with a low spade and East ruffed with the six of diamonds.
At trick 3 East shifts to the nine of hearts. You play the jack and it wins as West follows with the deuce.
At trick 4 you lead the deuce of diamonds, West discards a low spade, you play the king and East plays a low diamond. How many diamonds did East start with? It does not look like you will make the contract. What do you do now?
When I observed the hand, declarer did not get flummoxed. She reasoned that she needed to do as well or better than the other NS pairs. After all, diamonds were going to break 5-0 for all declarers. She managed to hold it to down one. Do you see how?
She had lost one spade, one spade ruff, and was sure to lose two more diamonds. If she could hold her club losers to one, she would get out for down 1. It was likely that East held the club ace, so if she could endplay East, the ace would be her only club loser.
At tricks five and six she cashed her two top hearts ending in hand. Then she led a low spade ruffed with dummy’s and overruffed with East’s nine. At trick eight East led the diamond queen taken with declarer’s ace. At trick nine she led the king of spades, but East could see the endplay coming and refused to ruff. Declarer then led a trump to East’s winner and the endplay was complete, resulting in 75 percent of the matchpoints for NS.
Here is the entire hand:
You may want to lay out the hand with cards on the table to make sure you follow it all.
BTW, West erred in leading the ace of spades. Any other lead and South will go down two. Some declarers went down three, failing to make the endplay.
Here is a hand I saw played by Ralph Katz sitting South:
Note that Katz will go down immediately if West leads a diamond. However, West chose the reasonable lead of the ace of clubs.
Katz ruffed and visualized the East hand. This is what I infer that Katz was thinking: East had opened the bidding and, after rebidding his diamonds, should hold the ace and king of diamonds. West led the ace of clubs, so presumably has the king as well. Also, it appears that an unbalanced hand with length in clubs would justify West’s aggressive bidding. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that East holds the Q J of hearts to justify his opening bid.
Assume Katz visualized a hand like the one East held, do you see how he avoided losing one heart and two diamonds? He made his doubled contract! How did Katz Play?
You are South in four hearts after the bidding shown below:
West leads the ace of clubs, East playing the deuce. At trick two West shifts to the jack of spades. You play the queen, East plays the king, and you win with the ace.
You have one spade loser and two club losers. How are you going to handle the trump suit for no losers? The percentage play when missing three trumps is to finesse for the king. But how are you going to get to dummy to do that?
Instead of the heart finesse, maybe you can discard your losing spade on the ace of diamonds? But that requires that you drop the singleton king of hearts, otherwise the defense will cash their spade winner before you can get to dummy.
Is that king of diamonds a mirage? Maybe it would be helpful for you to think of it as a low diamond. Does that make you decision any easier?
You have one losing spade. If you can drop the jack of hearts in the third round, you will be able to pitch two losing spades from dummy. That’s a 27 percent chance. Do you see any other possibilities?
This hand played by experts on BBO was bid nicely, but the play was botched. Follow along and see if you agree:
South got to four hearts after she opened the bidding one club, her LHO overcalled one spade, and her partner made a negative double.
Opening lead by West was the king of spades. Declarer won the ace, played a trump to dummy’s ace, and led a low club to the queen which won. Declarer can now conclude that West has the ace of clubs. If trumps split 3-2 and West has the king of diamonds, this contract should make: Go to dummy with a second round of trumps and lead a diamond toward the king-queen. If West plays the ace your diamonds are set up and your king of clubs is protected. If West plays low, you draw a third round of trumps and lead another diamond toward the queen. Contract should make with one spade loser, one diamond loser and one club loser.
Inexplicably to me, declarer led another club back toward the king at trick four and down she went. Here is the entire hand:
This is a good double dummy exercise involving an end play, Can you figure it out? Answer tomorrow afternoon.
This is an exercise in figuring out what to do about the club suit. You may have two losers in hearts, so you may need to hold your club losers to one. It would be helpful if you could induce the opponents to lead clubs. By planning your entries carefully, you can make the opponents help you!
HT: Mike Lawrence in the Bridge Bulletin
You are end up four spades with silent opponents. Partner splintered your one spade opening with four diamonds. The opening lead is the ace of diamonds.
Dummy
Lead: 
You
You count your losers: perhaps one spade if they break 3-0, one heart, one diamond and no clubs. But do you have enough trumps in dummy to ruff two diamonds and two hearts? Assuming spades break 2-1, how can you insure 11 tricks ?
Here is an exercise in counting the hand. Whether you are declarer or defender, counting helps you solve the mystery of missing honors. For example, you need to locate the missing club honors in this hand:
Dummy
Lead 
You
Once you give me the answers to those questions, we will be able do some more counting to investigate location of the missing honors in clubs. Stay tuned.
