Brian Davies
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Almost everyone played in four spades doubled, losing six tricks – 500 to East/West. Every West (including me) led the normal three of hearts (four, ace, five). Half of the East players switched to the king of diamonds, half continued hearts. At our table, partner returned a heart, declarer overtook the in dummy and played a third heart discarding a diamond. I could ruff, but I was ruffing with a natural trump trick, so we only took the contract off two.
I think that a diamond switch looks right. A heart continuation can only be right if I had a singleton and it must be against the odds for declarer to hold three hearts as well as the spade length.
I wondered afterwards whether I should have led an ace. It is often safe because it is against the odds for declarer to hold the side-suit king. But I think that Brian makes a good point that a side-suit is possible.
My thoughts are that East wants to know how many diamonds I hold. If I have a singleton diamond, she should win the ace and immediately return a diamond for a ruff. Since she hold the ace of trumps there is a good chance of two ruffs. If I hold a doubleton, she should probably win the second diamond and play a third round hoping for an Uppercut (over-ruff). Winning trick 1 and returning a diamond might work in the same way, but it is playing the ace on air and potentially setting up the king. Finally, if I hold three diamonds, declarer has a singleton. Playing the ace is plausible, because she might never make it, but it does set up dummy’s king. The jack looks better if declare has a small singleton, but the ace is better if declarer has the singleton queen.
At the table, I led a MUD six. Partner played the jack and declarer won with the queen. Declarer played a heart to the queen, then a low diamond from table. Partner rose with the ace, hoping that I had led a doubleton and declarer ruffed!
There is a fool-proof way of telling partner that I hold three diamonds. Maybe I should have raised partner’s two diamonds to three!
Now put yourself in the East seat after West leads and dummy plays low (ideally cover up West and South. What card do you play at trick 1 for each of the three alternatives?
I would double with 10 HCPs (or a good 9). So, 2S for me denies these values and is if course non-forcing.
I’m interested in Julian’s expert opinion, but I would bid 2S.
Thank you David. In practice they bid anyway (in the first of these auctions) and we scored well in 3C doubled. It was in the post mortem that our opponents agreed that opener should have passed 2H. It wasn’t for me to get involved in their private argument, but I would have been agrieved if 2H had been passed out without an alert.
Hi Bruce, OGUST is one convention that is usually well understood. I think that your partner has misunderstood the convention – a 4D response does not exist and it takes you beyond 3NT, which is a likely final contract. Did your partner have (say) six spades and six diamonds? This 4D bid only makes some sense if she had this type of extreme distribution.
Your description of the responses is correct. It is what Bernard teaches and what I have seen written in every book or article that I have read on the subject. Some players do switch the diamond and heart responses, but I think that this comes from mistakes rather than different agreed responses.
John is correct that a 3NT response is traditional with a six-card suit headed by AKQ. This response is sometimes ignored in the literature – partly because many experts might choose to open at the one level with this type of suit! Bernard did mention this response in passing, but didn’t emphasise it (it is very rare).
This looks tough Peter, misfits often are.
I would open 1S as East. Partner will never believe that you have a six-card major if you don’t open it! I would jump to 3D as West (forcing to game 16+). If 4C is natural for you then that would be my rebid, but I suspect that it is a cue-bid agreeing diamonds for most. So East probably rebids 3S – giving you the chance to finish in 6S.
Christopher might be right, it looks the right sort of format. I have: ” Guide to Better Acol Bridge” and the last hand number is 128. I also have: “Guide to Better Duplicate Bridge” and the last hand number is 96. But the layouts are similar.
How do you bid clubs naturally after a 2NT opening in your system John? Do you bid 3C then 4C? If so, that would be my choice.
Julian will give his expert opinion.
I think that 12 tricks are secure. If you start with the ace of hearts and either defender shows out you can always play the suit for one loser, so we are looking for an overtrick at pairs.
Our best chance is that hearts break 3-2 and we will also succeed if either opponent has a singleton jack or if west has a singleton nine. But it must be worth ruffing a couple of clubs (the king might come down in three) and there might be squeeze possibilities because the jack of diamond provides a menace (against West’s queen) and the queen of clubs will also be a menace. So there might be a squeeze if West has the four spades and the king of clubs. Maybe:
The final spade squeezes West.
Hi Bruce, yes I have just got around to playing these on Q plus. Your partner has a couple of clues to make the correct spade switch, when in with the king of hearts: (1) Your high diamond lead should suggest that you don’t want that suit returned and (2) the weakness in dummy suggests a spade switch.
Continuing diamonds would only work if you had started with a six-card diamond suit and declarer had ace-king bare. Bernard suggested that even if this were the case, the suit would be blocked. Maybe … but if South overtakes with the ten at trick 1, there will be no blockage because the three of diamonds could be an entry! There is a subtle point about our choice of lead here:
- As North, I would lead the eight of diamonds (2nd highest from a poor suit*). This should promise the nine, since it is the only higher spot card. South can safely play the ten, ensuring that the suit can be unblocked if necessary later on the play.
- If North leads the nine of diamonds (top of nothing), South cannot afford to overtake with ten because declarer might have started with AK8 and playing the nine and ten on the first trick would expose South’s jack to a second-round heart finesse. I am not a fan of “Top of Nothing” leads.
* It is of course possible that the the lead of the eight of diamonds might be from AK98(x) – but it is still helpful to overtake!
