How do you play this combination…

1a) …for 4 tricks?

You have very few options here other than finding the K doubleton of spades onside. Lead low to the Q, cash the Ace and hope the K drops. Because you do not have either the 10 or 9 of spades, you cannot afford to lead the J from your hand. West covering would guarantee a loser in the suit.
1b) …for 3 tricks?

Play the Ace of the suit first. If the K plays, you have 3 tricks. If the T or 9 plays from either opponent, lead through that opponent next (so that they are second to play) to your high honor. If that T or 9 was singleton, you will have a finesse against the spot in the other hand.
1c) …for 2 tricks if you cannot lose the lead?

Lead low to the Q and hope it wins. If you are playing against a West who always covers an honor with an honor, you might consider leading the J and going up with the A to try to drop the K offsides, but they really need to always cover for this to be right.
1d) …for 2 tricks if you cannot lose the lead to East?

Play the A first, then lead to either the Q or J. You basically need West to have the K, but this gives you the slight extra chance of East holding the singleton K.

Post from: YouHold

For each of these problems, unless otherwise stated, assume that you are playing in notrumps with plenty of communications in side suits to lead the key
suit in any manner you wish. (Examples, leading up to dummy twice, etc.)

The object in each of the questions below is to play in a manner which gives you the greatest chance of success based on the goal outlined. Frequently there will not be a solution which works 100% of the time.

For this series, I’m going to use the same card combination, but with different goals.

How do you play this combination…

1a) …for 4 tricks?
1b) …for 3 tricks?
1c) …for 2 tricks if you cannot lose the lead?
1d) …for 2 tricks if you cannot lose the lead to East?

Post from: YouHold

AQTxxx

—

—

AKT9xxx

After 3 passes to me, I chose to open 1C (natural) rather than 2C (strong).

On a different deal yesterday, I had another strong highly distributional hand:

AKQJxxx

AJTxx

—

x

This one I chose to open 2C. I’m sure that there are players who would advocate 2C on both hands, and some who wouldn’t bid 2C on either one. Why did I “mix and match”?

In terms of playing strength, both hands are incredibly strong. The key difference between the hands lies in suit quality.

In the first hand I have 2 nearly equal suits, but neither one is self sufficient. Looking at my own hand, I don’t know which black suit should be trumps. I need to solicit an opinion from partner. Further, I thought that if I constructed an unusual auction (1c-2s-3s-4s) I might be able to describe the hand at a low enough level to not get overboard if partner doesn’t fit my hand.

On the second deal, my spades are strong enough that I can play them opposite any hand, so even if I never get a chance to mention my heart suit, that’s okay. In fact, there are many times when it is advantageous to play in spades even if partner fits hearts. There can be 2 reasons for that; the first is that a distributional hand has to take a lot of ruffs, so the shorter suit may be subject to being tapped out and losing control. The second is a little more obscure, but sometimes you can avoid a key guess by playing in the stronger suit.

Partner’s hand on the second deal was:

x

Kxx

Qx

KQxxxxx

If you play in 6H, you need to guess the QH to make. In 6S, however, after drawing trumps you can lead a club towards the long suit on the board. If the AC is onside (with clubs splitting), you can discard all of your hearts before having to think about the Q. If the AC is offside, you can still try to guess the QH.

Even if partner’s hand was slightly different with a better heart fit, the same considerations apply:

x

Kxxx

Qx

KQJTxx

I’ve given partner an extra heart and a stronger club suit, but still not topped by the Ace.  Even with the stronger heart holdings, 6S is a safer contract.

Planning auctions on very distributional hands is important.  These hands don’t happen very often, but being able to handle them gracefully can help your results immensely.

Post from: YouHold

Kx

QT9xx

KJTx

xx

Nothing exciting to start. Everyone passes to partner, who opens 1C in 4th seat. You respond 1H, partner forces to game with 2S. You decide to make a descriptive call of 3D, and partner shows a distributional 2 suiter by bidding 3S.

There are many possible contracts, but your soft honors in both red suits suggest that playing 3NT might be best, so you bid 3NT. Partner now bids 4S.

What’s going on? The key inference to getting this hand right: If partner wanted to insist on a black suit instead of 3NT, why wouldn’t he bid 4C instead of 4S? 4S must show an very very unusual hand. Normally you might think partner had 5 excelent spades, but your KS makes that impossible. Partner must have a very unusual and strong hand, and your doubletons in the blacks and the KS make your hand very strong. Bid 6C.

Partner’s hand was:

AQTxxx

—

—

AKT9xxx

Granted, 7-6 hands aren’t that common, but a little time to consider what partner has will get you to your slam.  (On the actual deal, clubs and spades both break so 7 makes.)

Post from: YouHold

	QJ9x
	x
	JT
	KT9xxx
	x
	QTx
	AKQ8xxx
	Ax

West cashes both major suit aces (AS, A from AK) and plays another heart.

It’s tempting to simply ruff the heart, ruff a spade, ruff a heart, ruff a spade and draw trumps. However, we are missing 9xxx of diamonds. If we take 2 diamond ruffs on the board and trumps are 4-0, we will establish a 3rd defensive trick. Given the bidding and the fact that West might shift to a trump if she had one, this seems more likely than usual. What else can we do?

It seems very likely that East has one of the major suit kings, most likely in hearts. If that is the case, we can set up a double squeeze around the club suit. (Technically, it’s a single squeeze played as a double. Only one opponent can guard clubs, we just don’t know who.)

So I embarked on this line of play: ruffed the heart, ruff a spade, diamond to the board, ruff a spade. This would have ruffed out the KS if East happened to have it. It didn’t appear, so I played all my trumps leading to this position:

	Q
	KT9
	Q
	x
	Ax

On the last diamond, West must keep the KS, so they cannot keep 3 clubs. The QS is discarded from the board, and it is East’s turn to be squeezed. If East has the KH, they also cannot keep both that and 3 clubs.

The opponents defended well on this board. East did in fact have the KH. West, who only had 2 clubs, discarded the JC early in the hand to show that she couldn’t guard the suit. In the ending above, East tried discarding the KH, hoping their partner had the QH. Today that didn’t happen, and I made my 5D.

Of course, today West had a diamond, being 5-5-1-2 in pattern. So the simple line of play would have worked after all. The opponents were sure to point this out to me after the hand was over.

Post from: YouHold

The ABA recently had its summer nationals in Atlanta, where I live. I had obligations which kept me from playing throughout the tournament, but I was able to play in one national event, a swiss team event.

It was an enjoyable experience, if a little different. There were a number of interesting difference between the organizations that was easy to see even from 1 day of play. The level of competition was overall not nearly as strong as in the ACBL, but I had been expecting that from everything I knew. What I hadn’t been expecting was the large number of procedural irregularities in that one day of play. (Revokes, people missorting their hand, that sort of thing.)

One hand stands out during the day as my favorite.

¹ Pick a game

Opening Lead: Ace of Spades (A from AK).

	QJ9x
	x
	JT
	KT9xxx
	x
	QTx
	AKQ8xxx
	Ax

East discouraged spades. West shifted to the Ace of Hearts (East encouraging) and played a second heart.

I’ll leave you here to plan the play. Conclusion in part 2.

Post from: YouHold

	A75
	76
	AQJT42
	52
		962
4		AT532
		73
		K96

Normally after partner leads 4th best, if you win the trick and return the suit, you return your original 4th best as well. However, this hand is a good exception to keep in mind. If you return the 3 of hearts at trick 2, partner may need to decide if you have 3 or 5. If you have 3, they need to switch immediately to try to get you back in to lead another heart through declarer. If you have 5, the suit is running. Return the 2 of hearts instead. If partner thinks you have 4, they will continue the suit anyway, “knowing” that declarer’s last card is dropping.

The whole hand:

	A75
	76
	AQJT42
	52
QT9		962
KJ94		AT532
96		73
T843		K96
	KJ83
	Q8
	K85
	AQJ7

Looking at 11 points in the dummy, 6 in their hand, and 15-17 by declarer, partner knows we have between 6 and 8 HCP. We’ve already won the Ace of hearts, but we could still have either the Ace of clubs or the King of diamonds. Partner might switch to a club at trick 3 if we aren’t careful with the heart spots.

Post from: YouHold

The have a simple auction, 1NT (15-17 HCP) by South, 3NT by North. You are in the East seat. Partner leads the 4 of hearts playing 4th best leads. This is what you see.

	A75
	76
	AQJT42
	52
		962
4		AT532
		73
		K96

Plan your defense. Be specific.

Post from: YouHold

This deal is an actual hand from the Vanderbilt Knockout Teams at the Dallas NABC.

You hold:

A843 873 — J86432

Partner leads the K against 3NT, which you play asks for an attitude signal.

Dummy hits with:

QT75 Q9 QT952 A7

Playing standard signals, you play the 3…or do you?

The whole hand:

	QT75
	Q9
	QT952
	A7
J6		A843
AK6542		873
74		—
Q95		J86432
	K92
	JT
	AKJ863
	KT

If you play the 3 at trick 1, you block the heart suit. You can no longer beat 3NT.

Post from: YouHold