Hi all
Here’s a spectacular deal from the BER sectional last weekend. This was the auction from Geoff’s point of view:
1. Semi-forcing
Dummy puts down a monster.
You ruff the Ace lead in dummy and start on trumps, West showing up with all three of them. You just have to find that pointy Queen to claim your twelve.
Geoff took what seems a fifty-fifty guess by finessing over East (because of the overall freakish distribution), but here the ball bounced the other way: down one.
The cleansing clue is West’s inability to bid over 2!
So he doesn’t have a six card suit, or a four card 
suit. Combine that with West holding all three trumps and it’s easy to smoke that Queen out of her palace.
Some other contemplations: My 5 call was far from an expert bid, it just happened in the heat of the moment. I don’t really care for a fit showing jump in 
because of the poor suit quality, but a 4 splinter to show extra strength looks reasonable. I wonder whether Geoff would have believed that considering he was holding a singleton himself.
Edit: Corrected deal after comment.
a) 1N was semi-forcing, so placing me with exactly five spades (no 2
rebid) is less clear than placing east with fewer than seven spades
QT, not Q9. Everybody knows “where there is the nine, there is also the Queen”
K at trick one, so how likely is it that I’d lead the dry 
Ace instead of a (putative) singleton 
T? Please. I CANNOT have a singleton diamond.
b) I had
c) Pard played the
I was East. My plan was to bid the hand in such a way that we would get to play 4
or 5
, probably doubled, and I didn’t think bidding 4
immediately would accomplish that. (Apparently, though, at the other table, North bid diamonds, and East jumped in spades, and the club suit was shut out. I’m guessing at our table South would bid 5
if I jumped to 4
right away.) In any case, when it came back to me at 5
, I couldn’t suppress my seven-card support any longer and bid 5
, but Jannes found the winning call of 6
, and West doubled. Now I was really unhappy about my stupid “plan.”
I should not have played the spade king at trick one, so declarer would not know if West had led spade ace from AK, and was planning to switch to his stiff diamond at trick two. Once I played the spade king, it should be pretty clear that West did not hold a stiff diamond or he would have led it.
I did use my mind lasers to try to convince South to finesse me for the diamond queen :)
I do like the analysis of the pass, and should have thought of that. I’m glad you didn’t test me with 4
, although a 3
call would have been safely forcing.
Not sure I agree with leading a singleton when you have two aces against a slam. It’s unlikely to cost directly (although I could construct a case where a spade discard is available on a heart), but it could help declarer pick up the suit. Indeed, it would certainly have helped me on this hand.
Nice mind lasers, Jo :) Next time I won’t laugh at the guy in the tin-foil hat …
The auction was so wild, no one knew who was making what, although I was pretty sure 5
was making, if not 6
. It was certainly possible, from West’s perspective, that his two aces were cashing. Since West held the trump ace, leading a singleton was unlikely to cost, and he might need to underlead his spade honor(s) to get a ruff for down 2, which argues for leading a stiff when he had one. But if I, as West, had held the spade AK and the trump ace, I think I would have led a high spade, not a singleton. Which is why I, as East, should not have played the spade King.
Quite a hand :)