Hunting for a Squeeze

Spade led, won in hand. A diamond towards dummy drew the ace from LHO. A club came back, won with the jack.

I cashed the KQ of diamonds, LHO discarding a heart on the queen. A club to the queen drew the ace from LHO. Finally, a spade came back, to the queen.



I have 5 of the remaining 6 tricks. There's a heart finesse there, but I stopped and tried to puzzle out a possible squeeze. (What didn't occur to me is that, if there's a squeeze on, that would mean that the finesse is on, too. Alas.) I'm still not good at puzzling out squeezes, mostly because my counting isn't all that great. I knew what suits RHO had played, so I counted out RHO's distribution as I cashed the club and spade winners, ending by cashing the ace of hearts. When the jack of diamonds didn't fall, I ran a heart to the king.

Turns out west had 5 hearts to the queen, so there was nothing there. I guess the point here is that I at least thought about things, and had count. I'm still missing some of the basics, though.

Blame?

Maybe there's no blame here, but 4 hearts made.

For my money, I think north is worth a stronger move than 3 spades. If you trust south to count pearson points, then the denial of 3 card spade support would tend to indicate that south has a better than minimum hand.

Agree? Or should south make a stronger move over the 3 heart interference bid.

Taking Care

After the 5th trick, I stopped to consider. Assuming the clubs split, I have the remaining tricks. However, what if the clubs don't split?

RHO has a 5 card spade suit, and had longer diamonds than LHO. Certainly, having clubs be 4-1 seems possible. Ergo, I led the ten of clubs to the ace, then low back to the queen. Sure enough, RHO showed out.

This left me with an easy finesse on the jack of clubs.

Of course, having taken the finesse, I beleatedly realized that I needed to cash my winners in hand, as I no longer had an entry back to them. Oh well. Bye bye hard earned overtrick.

Back at the club.

Played a 55% game. Not bad. Too bad 55.63% was in the money.

Got dealt: xx AKQJxx xx xxx. I guess this is why weak 2s go as high as 10 points. :)

I did get to play an interesting spades distribution

A83
KTx

The ace was the only entry to the board. I had finessing positions in both hearts (xxx vs AQx in hand) and diamonds (forget exactly what I had there). The nice thing is that LHO (who had bid, while RHO had not) led the 9 of spades.

While I would otherwise have claimed the ace, the lead of the 9 gave me extra chances. I ducked, and RHO put in the jack. I led away from diamonds, rather than finessing. (Think I had T98xx on board, AQxx in hand). When LHO won the singleton king (I underled the ace, but clearly it does not cost if the king is singleton), LHO returned a heart (yay!).

Later, when I led the ten towards the Ace in spades, LHO covered, promoting my 8. Nice to collect 3 tricks from that spade holding.

I Think I Made a Mistake

Bidding still in progress.



It belatedly occurs to me that I should have bid 3 hearts on the way to 3NT, to show 3 card heart support. I'm betting partner is 3514, and that we've now bypassed our best contract(s).

Deciphering the Bidding

Just played a hand against GiB, and was faced with the task of trying to picture the opponents' hands.



Obviously, partner has the ace of diamonds. Beyond that, though, what's going on?

4 diamonds was a splinter for spades. GiB alerts 4 hearts as a help suit slam try, but that seems ridiculous. It should be a control showing cue bid. Does it show extras, though, or is it just a courtesy, to show heart control below game?

My first instinct was that 4 spades showed the lack of a first or second round club control. If not that, why not just bid 4 notrump?

East passed. Partner led the 6 of clubs, and dummy came down.



Ok, that's NOT what I was expecting. Maybe, then, 4 hearts was a courtesy, and neither opponent has much more than an opening hand? Granted, if partner has the ace of diamond we already have 11 hcp, but with 9 of those tied up in diamonds, which they've splintered, I don't see the problem, yet.

I'll play out the hand now, and see what it all looked like. From my perspective, though, it sure looks like 6 spades should be making.

...

And the final analysis? Thanks to a void in diamonds and a long running club suit in west, 7 spades is always there.

Interestingly, 5Dx is only down 2, and a good save at all white against 4S+3. Maybe I should have thought of that.

Matchpoints

By nature, I'm more of an IMPs player than a MPs player. Maybe it's my misspent youth playing rubber bridge. (Wait, how is that misspent?) Whatever the reason, I tend to have the "just make the contract" mentality.

I'm getting better at being trick hungry on defense. I'm always looking out for the extra undertrick, or at least to gobble up the overtricks. When I'm declaring, though, I seem to have a mental lull.

Last night, I had a hand where, after 4 tricks, I had the 3 remaining trump in hand, and a running 6 card diamond suit on the board. So why did I concede the club ace? By the cold light of morning, I have no idea.

A better (?) hand from me:



I got a diamond lead. I inserted the ten, which held.

The question is whether or not to try for more than 1 spade trick. The contract is safe - I can survive losing a spade finesse followed by a heart switch (barely).

The next question is how to play the spades. At the table, I played low to the Ten. West held the KJxx in spades, so nothing was ever going to work. Still, I think low to the Queen is the better play if I'm going to try for the extra trick. If I just cash out, I have 11 tricks. If I lose the spade finesse and they take 2 heart tricks, I'm down to 10 tricks. If spades work out for me I have 12 winners, but only if they don't cash out first. It would be small compensation to see the king played on the Ten, only to have the defense claim 2 heart tricks.

(Of course, defense returned a club. Sometimes, I think I'm that the weak/inconsistent opposition in the ACBL games isn't helping me at all....)

Ok, so I still got it wrong - assuming that the field is always taking 11 tricks (which I think they are, but you never know). Still, I can take solace that I was at least THINKING along the right lines.

Test post - handviewer

Oh wow. Handviewer is amazing.

I wondered if my second bid should be a double in retrospect, but I certainly felt comfortable NOT letting them play 3H. I also felt it was right to pass 4 diamonds, as partner could be awfully weak for the bidding, and in fact rates to be quite light.

Mental Stretching

If you're curious what drew me away from this amazing game, my triathlon report can be found on my other blog.

Last night I only played 5 hands, but it was enough to show how out of practice I really am. Take this hand, for example.

(I'm really going to have to figure out how to embed these.)

I counted points off the top. Dummy had 10, I had 11. I figured partner for about 8, so maybe as much as 11 for declarer.

I won the ace of hearts, and returned a heart, partner showing that she started with 2 hearts. Partner discarded a club on the second round of trumps.

Ok, so partner started with 1 spade and 2 hearts, my mind creaked. That means 10 minors. Since she bid clubs, I'll assume 6 clubs, 4 diamonds.

Now, I knew, I should stop and figure out declarer's opening distribution. Alas, I hadn't even thought to count out dummy's opening distribution. SIGH. My mind just wanted to shut down, and it was surprisingly difficult to make it reason it out. (I was just mentally waving "declarer has lots of majors" and getting bored.)

FINE. Declarer has to have 6 spades. So 6322.

Later, when declarer showed out on the second round of clubs, I just couldn't overcome my inertia. It was only after the hand that I thought "huh, so partner was 7321".

I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Stay Tuned!

Ok, my triathlon is now done. I'm dying to play bridge more consistently again, so stay tuned for more mistakes, gaffes, and lessons learned!