Cui Culpa?

10th Jan – Board 17: Love All. Dealer North. 

I find it really hard to determine who is to blame for the E/W pair reaching totally the wrong contract on the featured hand. But I’m quite sure I would have done too.

What would you respond to 1♦ on that West hand? There are a number of possibilities I suppose, with 2♣, 3♦ or even a splinter of 3♠ all having their good points. I imagine whichever of those was taken East would end up – sooner or later – in 3NT which stands no chance on a spade lead but is laydown on any other. Yet at one table West responded 5♦, paying due homage to the Losing Trick Count, and thereby hitting the correct contract in one go. The trouble of course with the LTC is that at high levels it tends to become wobbly, treating aces and kings as the same, and for that reason it is often eschewed on hands such as West. In 5♦ declarer should aim to set up the clubs and make five club tricks, five diamond tricks and ultimately a ruff in the closed hand.

Shrinking Violet

14^th June – Board 20: Game All. Dealer West.

It is tempting sometimes when opening light opposite a passed partner to back-pedal later on fearing that there might be a danger of the pudding being well and truly over-egged. I know of some Easts who fell into just such a trap on the hand shown below, turning from aggressive tiger to shrinking violet in a matter of seconds.

There is nothing wrong with opening 1♦ third in hand on that East hand and as a matter of fact it is hardly ever wrong to open on sub-standard hands in that position for the simple reason that partner is not likely to get too carried away. (So if you have a good suit and a rebid ready just go for it.) When partner responds 1♥ however that ten count becomes just huge for any number of reasons, a fact substantiated by the Losing Trick Count of just six. A bid of 3♥ is the order of the day and West will happily raise to game which, while not exactly laydown, is easily within the limits demanded of a vulnerable game. For the record this is something less than 40% because the bonus for making a vulnerable game is so large. And indeed for a non-vulnerable game you still need only about a 40% chance of success to make bidding it worthwhile. In the hand above if the diamond finesse is successful you just require there to be no more than two trump losers, so either a 2-2 split or for South to have singleton ace or his actual holding of AQJ. If the diamond finesse is failing however you would require trumps to be 2-2 with the ace in the South hand. Those mathematically minded can work out the odds.

Difficult Choice

25th August – Board 6: East/West Game. Dealer North.

I wonder how many pairs got too high on the hand shown below? What is sure is that East will open the bidding with 1S and that South will overcall with 2H. But what next? I have to say that if I were at the table I would have ended up with a minus score but, honest as the day is long, this is how I believe the auction would go.

West	North	East	South
	No	1S	2H
2S	No	3C	No
3S	End

I certainly think that West should compete with 2S and at first glance and with an eye to the Losing Trick Count East might just go all the way. But I think caution should be applied a little because quite often partner will raise spades with just a trebleton and it is quite likely that there will be some wasted values in hearts. So I would bid on and the most flexible way is to make a trial bid of 3C, saying in effect that game might be on if West has either a decent raise or has good help in clubs. With such a feeble hand West would surely sign off and best defence would defeat this contract by a trick. But it strikes me that if partner held a fourth spade then game would not be such a bad bet.

Abandoning Ship

12th August – Board 20: Game All. Dealer West.

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

The Losing Trick Count is a wonderful tool for letting you bid lots on low-pointed hands albeit with tons of distribution, but sometimes things go the other way. There are several misconceptions about the LTC and one is that if you don’t open you must have eight losers or more. Not true I’m afraid. Look at the West hand above – it has seven losers but anyone over the age of 25 wouldn’t open it because it will not be useful unless there is a fit with partner. And if you find one then you can treat is as you would an opener. Another misconception is that a hand with just three aces is bad news. Well three aces are more than useful, especially in an unbalanced hand, so much so that you can deduct a loser for what is called ‘overall control.’ Which makes the East hand above a six-loser hand. I think the bidding should go:

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

The 2S bid should be treated as forcing, even by a passed hand, and because of this it would be hard for East to make up a hand where game wasn’t odds-on. As happened at more than one table game wasn’t reached because East abandoned ship too soon, and twelve tricks were made with little sweat.

Poisoned Chalice

29^th July – Board 6: E/W Game. Dealer East

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

The Losing Trick Count is fun to teach and is easily assimilated by the advancing player, but in many ways it is a bit of a poisoned chalice. It is certainly useful in demonstrating that distribution is everything as important as high-card points, but on occasion it is used to the exclusion of everything else. Points in themselves are an incredibly useful asset and the more points you have the more you should bid. As an example you might make a grand slam in no-trumps missing a king, but not an ace, although the losing trick counts would be the same. So for no other reason than that I would consider raising partner’s 1D to 2D only on the hand shown above to be exceedingly coy. Sure it is a nine-loser hand, but it also has a good ten points and all those points could easily be working. If the queen of spades were replaced by the king then everyone would bid 3D and think nothing of it, yet there is still a good chance of making two tricks in the suit with the AQ. There is no chance of bidding the laydown slam unless North bids 3D first, when I think the bidding should go:

West	North	East	South
		No	1D
No	3D	No	4NT
No	5H	No	6D
All Pass

There is no point in South cue-bidding after the jump raise because the only thing of concern is that partner holds the requisite number of key-cards. Everyone’s favourite convention will find that out, the response to the Old Black showing two key-cards without the queen of trumps, and the play could hardly be more trivial.

No Mystery

22nd July – Board 23: Game all. Dealer South

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

If reversing is possibly the most difficult concept to comprehend it is certainly the most difficult to teach! And yet there is no mystery. A lot of the times when opener has bid two suits responder will give preference to the first, merely because opener will have more cards there. However if both opener and responder have limited hands and responder can only support his partner’s first suit at the three-level then the likelihood is that the contract will founder on insufficient values. That is why we suggest that to reverse the opener should have about sixteen points – or compensating values. And that would mean a hand high in distribution but with a low losing trick count. Such as the hand featured above. The South hand is good enough to reverse because of its shape, and once a fit has been found it should certainly not stop short of game. Once partner responds he should have nine losers or less, so with this five-loser hand game is assured once the fit is found. As it happens there will be intervention but this should have little impact on the final result. I think the bidding should go:

West	North	East	South
			1C
1D	1S	3D	3H
No	4H	All Pass

There are several points of interest. Firstly East should bid 3D NOT 2D! Remember you bid in these situations to the level of the fit and as you have nine trumps between you, you bid to make nine tricks. (You show a strong hand by bidding the opener’s suit first.) The idea is to put pressure on the opponents, and it does. 2H would be quite straightforward over 2D, 3H over 3D less so. But you would still do so because there is now an increased likelihood of partner having a fit with one of your suits. Eleven tricks were trivial with the even break in trumps.