Sunday, December 13, 2009

Go for the overtrick

I played on Bridgebase Online last night with some old friends. Usually I play live poker on Saturday nights, but I had played on Wednesday and Friday nights (Brag: Wednesday I played in a $110 buyin live tournament at the Horseshoe Casino and chopped first through fourth), so decided to stay home and play online bridge.

This was one of the hands I held:
Q 3 2 A K 2 A J 2 A 8 6 2.

I opened 1, left-hand opponent passed and partner bid 1. RHO overcalled 1.

We were playing support doubles, so should you make one? The answer is no. If you do, the bidding can become awkward later. It's better to bid 2NT and play that it doesn't deny three-card heart support. 2NT describes your high-card points, your distribution and partner can make a chack-back bid to find out about hearts -- you have the best of all worlds.

Partner raised to 3NT, the final contract. West led the 5 and the dummy was (hands rotated):

A 4
Q 6 5 3
6 5 4
K Q 10 4
==
Q 3 2
A K 2
A J 2
A 8 6 2

After I played low from dummy, East put in the jack and I won the queen. Who has the K? East has it, he was allowing for West to get in and lead another, apparently, although the king works out the same in most cases.

I played a club to the king and another to my ace. West showed out, so East almost certainly had five spades and four clubs. There were nine tricks off the top, but why settle for nine. Hearts did't rate to split, so I didn't want to count on that. What would you do next?

I made the funny looking play of advancing the 2. I was hoping that East had 5=2=2=4 distribution. In that case, I could run my hearts, cash the ace of diamonds, and lead the low spade to endplay East.

West won the 8 and led the 10 to the ace. I led a low heart from dummy, and East showed out! That means he was 5=0=4=4. Okay, that likely would work, too.

I played three rounds of hearts, ending in dummy, while East discarded two spades and one diamond. I led a diamond to the ace as East played the Q. That could be a falsecard, but I judged he had played it from K Q, so led the spade. He won it, cashed his high diamond and was endplayed. Here are all four hands:

A 4
Q 6 5 3
6 5 4
K Q 10 4
10 6 5 K J 9 8 7
J 10 9 8 7 4 ---
9 8 3 K Q 10 7
5 J 9 7 3
Q 3 2
A K 2
A J 2
A 8 6 2

Below is the BBO Handviewer presentation:

1 comment:

  1. I read through your post and saw the word, "dummy," several times. Whew! For a while I thought you were talking about me! ;-)

    Re: Downtown Ocala. They're trying. The city hired on guy who was supposed to build a whole block of new shops/condos, etc., but he went bust and now the land is sitting vacant! A big mess. I don't know what will happen in the future with it. Really too bad.

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