No Messing With Finessing

29th August – Board 14: Love All. Dealer East.

It takes ages to get people to finesse and even longer to get them not to and the hand below was almost textbook……

	North: S J 10 9 8 3 2 H J D K 10 9 6 C Q 10
West: S A 5 H Q 9 5 3 D A 8 3 C K J 7 2		East: S 4 H A 10 8 7 6 2 D Q 7 4 C A 6 4
	South: S K Q 7 6 H K 4 D J 5 2 C 9 8 5 3

West	North	East	South
		1H	No
2NT	No	3S	No
4D	No	4H	End

There are probably many ways of getting to 4H and the one I suggest uses a Jacoby 2NT response to show a high card raise to game or better. 3S shows a singleton and 4D is a cue and 4H says that’s enough. Anyway let us suppose South leads the king of spades. How do you proceed? In cases such as these you should assume the adverse cards are lying as badly as possible in which case you might lose one heart, two diamonds and a club. Win the lead and play a low heart aiming to cover whatever card North plays. In this way you can guarantee to have one trump loser at most. When North plays the jack you obviously win with the ace and should now play the king of clubs, the ace of clubs and a low club towards the jack. If South has the queen it is true the finesse would have worked but that doesn’t matter because now the jack will be established as a discard for a diamond. But more importantly on occasion you will drop the doubleton queen from North when a diamond switch from that hand could be worrying. Indeed swap the king and knave of diamonds in the North/South hands and you would be defeated if you hadn’t played the clubs in the prescribed manner. As it happens – as it does so frequently – virtue has to be its own reward.

Same Wavelength

23rd May – Board 23: Game All. Dealer South.

The following hand should be easy to bid to (almost) the right contract but you have to be careful that you and your partner are both on the same wavelength.

	North: S 5 H Q 10 6 2 D K Q 7 4 C Q 8 7 5
West: S A J 8 7 3 H K J 5 D A 6 2 C J 9		East: S K Q 9 2 H A 9 8 D 10 C A K 4 3 2
	South: S 10 6 4 H 7 4 3 D J 9 8 5 3 C 10 6

West	North	East	South
			No
1S	No	2NT	No
3S	No	4C	No
4D	No	4NT	No
5H	No	6S	End

The grand slam is just about worth being in although hard to bid with any degree of certainty but its younger brother should not prove too difficult to aspire to. 2NT is Jacoby, agreeing spades and game forcing. 3S denies a hand in excess of about 15 points but is stronger than 4S and it also denies a singleton or void. Then after the mandatory cue-bid or two Roman Keycard confirms that all the main players are present leading to the obvious slam. So was I part of this glorious bidding sequence when I held the West cards? Not all. North made a cheeky double of the 1S opening bid and although partner did bid 2NT it was not clear whether we were playing system on or not. Partner was but I wasn’t. 

Perfect Defence

4^th April – Board 17: Love All. Dealer North.

Some things are hard to do but are nearly always right and this hand features one of them. When the opposing side sacrifices at a high level without the majority of the points it is mandatory to lead a trump.

	North: S K J 5 4 3 H K Q J 4 D 4 2 C 9 5
West: S 10 8 2 H none D J 8 C K J 10 8 7 6 4 2		East: S Q H 9 7 6 5 3 2 D A 10 6 5 C A Q
	South: S A 9 7 6 H A 10 8 D K Q 9 7 3 C 3

West	North	East	South
	1S	No	2NT*
4C	4S	5C	Dbl
End

* = Jacoby, game forcing in spades.

The bidding might go differently of course. East might get involved at his first turn either by doubling – but would worry about club bids opposite – or might even bid 2H although the suit quality is – er – a little lacking. Whatever happens early on North/South are bound to bid to game and East/West will surely sacrifice in 5C, although in fact 4S can be defeated due to the ghastly heart division. Tempting as it might seem for North to lead a top heart he should resist temptation and lead a trump. Declarer will win in dummy and lead the singleton spade but now South ducks so that North can win to lead another trump. With this perfect defence the contract will founder by two tricks for a 300 point penalty. Without the trump lead the contract is only one down and in fact would make with no trump lead at all.

Under Control

26th July – Board 5: North/South Vul. Dealer North.

If I had to chose only a few conventions I would always have room for Jacoby 2NT, showing as it does a high card raise to game or better in partner’s major suit opening. Without it the responder is always full of angst, feeling that perhaps he hasn’t shown the true strength of his hand.

East has a choice over 2NT. Should he show a hand with no slam ambitions at all by bidding 4♠, or show mild interest or better with a 3♠ bid, leaving partner to show some control elsewhere? I think it just about qualifies for the latter but after West’s heart cue-bid it would be prudent to sign off in game and West should be happy to concur. The duplication of values in the club suit is horrendous but that sort of thing does happen when the combined hands have tons of points but are essentially balanced.

Hard To Know

5^th April – Board 2: North/South Vul. Dealer East.

Some hands are impossible to get right with any sense of real conviction and that was certainly the case with the hand featured below. Everybody who bid a slam – and there were lots of those – got away with it even though there were two cashing tricks for the defence.

West	North	East	South
		1H	2D
3D	4D	4H	No
5D	No	5H	End

I submit the above auction with no real conviction but nevertheless there are several points of interest. Firstly, after an overcall, Jacoby 2NT should be dispensed with, for the very good reason that the chances of a slam are now minimised and a natural 2NT might be the only good bid available. To show good support for partner to the three-level or beyond just cue-bid the opponent’s suit, which frees up a direct raise as being largely pre-emptive. So here 3D is forcing to at least 3H. It’s what to do after partner bids 4H that causes the most anguish for it would be feeble to pass, with partner having at most three points in the red suits. What about 4NT? I really hate that because you still have no idea what to do if partner shows two or even three key cards. On the hand above give opener the king of clubs and 6H is lay-down and he won’t tell you that if you bid the Old Black. Or he can have AJxx in both black suits with the king of hearts as well and there would probably be two inescapable losers. So I am drawn to the conclusion that you have to cue-bid 5D, thereby denying first round control in both black suits and hope that partner can act correctly on that information. Of course this would almost certainly lead to the defence getting it right by leading a club but sometimes virtue has to be its own reward. Along with losing a load of imps when they bid and make 6H in the other room, but with less sophistication!

Space-Age Acol

9^th December – Board 19: E/W Vul. Dealer South.

One of the most useful gadgets to have emerged in the last few years is undoubtedly the Jacoby 2NT, a bid used after partner has opened with one of a major to show a high card raise to game in that suit, or better. See how well it works on the hand shown above, when the following auction would probably take place:

West	North	East	South
			No
1H	No	2NT	No
3C	No	3D	No
3S	No	4C	No
4D	No	6H	End

There are many different ways to continue after partner has responded 2NT but a common method is for the opener to bid 3C to show an above average hand, with responder replying 3D to show the same. (Any other bid in a new suit would be a cue-bid.) 3S, 4C and 4D are cue-bids negating the need to bid Blackwood but it is hard to imagine that there are enough high cards in the West hand for the grand slam to be viable. (Remember that playing weak twos an opening bid of 2C shows either an Acol 2 somewhere OR a balanced 19/20, and West hasn’t done that.) Without Jacoby it is hard to see what East could sensibly do at his first turn.

The play is trivial. On a trump lead, say, declarer draws trump, eliminates spades and diamonds and runs the queen of clubs. South will win and is endplayed, and would be even if he had another club.

The Old And The New

10th June - Board: 3 E/W Vul. Dealer South

	North: S Q 9 6 2 H 4 D Q J 7 5 4 C 9 8 5
West: S A K H A K 9 6 D K 10 6 2 C J 7 6		East: S J 10 H Q 10 5 3 2 D none C A K Q 10 3 2
	South: S 8 7 5 4 3 H J 8 7 D A 9 8 3 C 4

There were loads of exciting hands again this week but this one caught my imagination because to bid it well you really needed a mixture of old and new ideas. As you can see 7H is laydown but to bid it you need to establish the perfect heart fit at a low level so that you have plenty of room to show controls. Jacoby 2NT as a response to an opening bid of 1S/H does just that, showing as it does a high card raise to game or better in the opener’s suit. There are many ways to proceed after that but a popular method is to use a 3C rebid by opener to show an above average hand – say 15 points or more – with a reciprocal 3D rebid by responder going along with any slam aspirations. A sensible auction might be the following:

West East

1H 2NT

3C 3D

3S 5NT

7H

So 2NT is Jacoby, agreeing hearts and game-forcing, 3C shows slam interest while 3D goes along with that notion. 3S shows first round control and 5NT is – Josephine! Amazing to have this little used convention come up two weeks running. With two of the top three heart honours West bids the grand.

If anyone would like more extensive knowledge of Jacoby feel free to send me an e-mail and I will attach some notes.