The Adventures of Sam and Richard - Part 26
- From: "Richard Lawson" <nouma@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 14:03:30 -0500
The Grand Slam club is in action again after the summer break. Sam and I
head on down to the Richfield Community Center and I buy a yearlong
membership.
Tonight's game is a club championship. I sit down and give a lesson in how
*not* to defend:
T972
QJ96
95
952
K8 AJ3
AK T8542
KJT763 Q8
AK4 T63
Q654
73
A42
QJ87
The opponents get to 3NT. I lead the Ten of spades, which declarer runs
around to the King. He then knocks out Sam's Ace of diamonds. Sam returns
a club, and declarer wins the Ace, then runs the hearts and diamonds in his
hand. I have to make four discards.
Should be easy, right? Just throw my worthless spades. But no, in this
position:
9
Q
-
95
8 AJ
- T
3
K4 6
Q6
-
-
QJ
When declarer leads his last diamond, all I have to do is throw my last
spade. Declarer will then have to make a fatal discard from dummy. But no,
I throw a club, and now declarer can throw dummy's heart and squeeze Sam in
the black suits. Making six, for a bottom. Thoughtless play on my part.
Fortunately, Sam is making no such defensive mistakes:
K43
J7
K983
JT65
AQJT2 9765
KQT64 95
A7 JT4
8 A932
8
A832
Q652
QJ74
As dealer, I pass as North. Sam opens 1C in third seat. West overcalls 1S,
and I respond 1NT. East bids 2S, Sam passes, and West bids 4S. All pass.
I could lead a club, but it seems attractive to try for a ruff. So I lead
the Jack of hearts. Declarer plays small, and Sam thinks. The Jack can't
be a singleton, not after I bid 1NT. And I probably don't have four hearts
or I would have made a negative double. No matter what, my lead has
probably helped declarer, and it's vital to set up our side-suit winners.
So Sam plays the Ace. Declarer tries false-carding the Queen, but Sam isn't
buying it. He makes the essential switch to a low diamond. Declarer can't
pitch diamonds on his hearts now, so he has to give me a diamond and a
spade. Holding declarer to four was a 5- on an 8 top; letting declarer make
five would have been a 2.
In and of itself not exactly a Bols-caliber play, but it was just indicative
of all the little things Sam was doing right tonight.
Then an interesting hand in defense and play:
K43
K42
J64
A532
AT975 Q82
QT95 A6
Q5 AK3
87 QT964
J6
J873
T9872
KJ
East, one of the best players in the club, opens 1NT. Sam and I are silent
throughout as the auction proceeds 2C - 2D - 2S - 3S - 4S. East gave the
matter a great deal of thought before bidding 3S. Since he's denied holding
a four-card major, and since West hasn't shown any strength at all, my guess
is that East is 3-2-4-4 or something similar. West seems to have 5-4 in the
majors. So declarer will probably try to ruff hearts in dummy. I can try
and do something about this.
I lead a low spade. Declarer plays small, and I mentally nod as Sam plays
the Jack; good start. Declarer wins the Ace, plays three diamonds to pitch
a club, then the Ace of hearts and a heart back to the Nine and my King. I
play King of spades, spade, and now declarer has to lose a club and a heart.
Down one.
East makes an interesting point afterwards. It must be right to fly the
Queen of spades. If I've underled Jxx of spades and playing low allows him
to capture the King with the Ace, I'm still always going to win the Jack
because declarer will need to use the Queen of spades to ruff a heart loser.
Given that a trump loser is all but assured, he needs to play spades in a
way that best guarantees we won't be able to play two more rounds when a
heart is conceded. East says that the best way to prevent that is to play
for my actual holding and fly the Queen at trick one.
Food for thought. Still, if I'd led from Jxx, playing small would also
prevent us from playing two more spades when in with a heart. The question
then becomes, which holding am I more likely to have led from - Jxx or Kxx.
Both seem equally likely to me, but then, East has much more experience
playing high-level bridge than I have. So I'll concede to him the point
that Kxx is the more likely holding.
A few hands later, Sam makes one of those excellent "partnership" plays that
really makes me glad he's *my* partner:
8
KQ973
AJ952
KT
QJ97 A654
A864 J2
84 KT
J72 AQ985
KT32
T5
Q763
643
As dealer, all red, I open the North hand 1H. East makes a takeout double.
I think I've mentioned before that Sam and I play a very unusual system over
takeout doubles, one taught to him by his mentor. A pass shows 6-9 HCP,
Redouble shows 10+, and with 0-5 you must bid. As a method I think it has
no more or less flaws than lots of other commonly-played conventions. After
fifteen years, it's proven to be no huge weakness in our system, so we keep
playing it.
Sam's bid is supposed to be 1S. But he also knows these opponents are very
aggressive bidders. He wants them to get to some high-level spade contract.
So rather than warn them away, he bids 2H on his doubleton. I alert and
explain it as 0-5 HCP with heart support.
West bids 2S, as expected. I give Sam a bad moment by leaping to 4H. Yes,
this could go for 800 or more, but I also know the opponents are aggressive.
I want to deprive them of bidding room - for all I know they have a slam -
and suggest a sacrifice to Sam if he holds the right hand. I don't expect
to get doubled against these opponents, and so it proves - East bids 4S,
which is passed out.
I lead the King of hearts and Sam plays the Ten. Declarer wins the Ace and
leads the Queen of spades, finessing to Sam's King. He pushes back another
heart. I win the Queen and, fully expecting that Sam started with four
hearts, lead the Ten of clubs. It's a mostly-futile attempt to fool
declarer; Sam has already shown up with the King of spades and can't have
the King of clubs as well.
Declarer runs the club to her Jack and then plays a spade to the Ace. She
pauses when I show out. If she draws trump, then cashes clubs, she'll be
stuck in dummy to lead away from the King of diamonds. And if she draws
trump and leads a diamond, I can win the Ace and cash a heart.
So she leads a spade to her Nine and leads a diamond. I have fully given up
on this hand. I know ducking and hoping for a misguess would be another
exercise in futility; Sam can't have the Ace. So I play the Ace and am
actually leaning forward, expecting declarer to claim.
Sam, however, drops the Queen of diamonds under my Ace. I blink at it and
lean back. What is Sam doing? What's he trying to tell me? Can he be
ruffing diamonds? Or clubs? No, he would have led his stiff after winning
the King of spades. I had been fully prepared to just fold up my cards and
concede, but it occurs to me that perhaps Sam has two hearts, not four, and
that he can overruff dummy. At any rate, it absolutely can't hurt anything
at this point.
I lead a heart, declarer ruffs in dummy, and Sam overruffs. Down one. Just
a terrific play by Sam, a wake-up call that told me not to take things at
face value. I've seen few defenders make such a play at the table - full
marks to Sam for finding a play that slapped me in the face and forced me to
find the setting defense. I would have certainly conceded the contract
without it.
We finish with a 60% game, enough to win the club championship. This is
almost entirely due to Sam and the steady game he played - I didn't even
talk about the great 3N+4 or 4S+4 contracts he declared. The Grand National
Pairs district finals are next month; Sam is certainly in fine form for
those.
-Richard
.
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