Vil Gravis's blog

Left Field 03

There are times when what looks like a careless play can produce great results. Too many people follow set principles, especially when it comes to drawing trumps. This deal comes from Thursday 29/06/23 at X-Clubs.

Board 1 Dealer N Nil Vul

9
AQ74
AK874
Q73
AQJ6
86
Q6
J9864
T872
JT9
JT93
K5
K543
K532
52
AT2

Left Field 02

I am a great believer in the “Law of Total Tricks” but in its simplest form, without the whole rigmarole that has been advanced by a number of expert players and authors. Being a simple soul in bridge terms, I have my own very simple version of the “Total Tricks” theory and I abbreviate it to “TNT”. To put it in simple terms, in a contested auction where both sides are bidding their own suit:
TNT

Left Field 01

Vil just can't seem to help himself! He must have found his days to be pretty empty since he gave up writing his articles for our X-Clubs site .. a month ago. Here's his latest series

We all learn a lot from reading bridge articles in newspapers and magazines, but sometimes we can learn a lot more by reading them and thinking things through for ourselves. This series of “Left Field” articles will not just help readers improve their bridge, I hope it will encourage them to start thinking for themselves.

Dealer S EW Vul

J643
9654
AQ4
94
97
72
T97
AQT873
KT2
K83
J8632
J5
AQ85
AQJT
K5
K62

Your Bid Your Lead 02

Unfortunately, due to the lack of sufficient entries from readers, this feature will not be continued.

Here is a summary of the panel’s answers and assigned score to the bids and opening leads, based on the panel’s answers, the majority answers scoring the most points, rightly or wrongly, along with my own comments where they may be of interest to the reader.

You are SOUTH in each case, and playing MATCH POINTS at your local club. Basic Acol, 12-14 1NT with transfers. 1C,1D,1H,1S all natural and 4+ cards.

X-Def 14

This deal, from a Swiss pairs on line session, has lots of pointers for everybody, on bidding, declarer play, and defence. Not surprising, therefore, that the results varied considerably from pair to pair.

Board 21 Dealer North NS Vul

843
9
A974
KJ985
KQJT95
J3
K65
T2
A
AQ72
QJT82
A76
762
KT8654
3
Q43

Your Bid Your Lead 01

This is a new feature that I would like to introduce to X-Clubs. Each week, I will select four BIDDING problems and four OPENING LEAD problems from actual deals at X-Clubs. I will pose these problems to a panel of club players and then assign points to the answers according to the panel’s views as well as results from the actual deals. All readers can enter into this competition, all they have to do is send their bids or opening leads for each of the eight problems, to me at villyn@xtra.co.nz before midnight each Sunday, this week the deadline is Sunday 21 May.

At the end of every four weeks, there will be a monthly prize of a Lotto Ticket (which could make the winner a millionaire!) awarded to the highest scorer. Good luck!

X-Clubs 62

This should have been one of the more easily bid grand slams, but not so.

Board 24 from Friday 13/05/23
Dlr W Nil Vul

QJ5
T7532
873
J9
4
A
AKQ65
AK6532
A86
Q98
T42
QT84
KT9732
KJ64
J9
7

X-Clubs 61

Just for interest, here are some deals which slipped through where there was a suit without cover in the 1NT opener. 3NT is then out of the question but does 4H become more attractive or not? I have made the 1NT opener East every time and not put in any vulnerability conditions, which may well be of importance in the bidding when NS might consider bidding over either 1NT or the 2NT response. I leave the reader to decide what might happen under different vulnerabilities.
Deal 1:

8652
T5
A82
QJ84
4
KQJ96432
J6
T6
AKT3
A8
K754
752
QJ97
7
QT93
AK93

When opener shows a club weakness, 4H must surely have many chances of making. In this deal, only the QC lead and a low diamond switch would defeat 4H if declarer falls for North’s clever switch. If declarer goes up with the DK in that scenario, an overtrick. But in reality at the table, NS will continue clubs for three rounds and 4H is then a claim. Note that when West asks with 2NT and decides on a final contract, NS don’t know very much about West’s shape or strength.

Deal 2

X-Def 12

Defence is more than just about the opening lead. Signalling on the opening lead makes the continuation of the defence much easier.

Board 9 from Wednesday 3/05/2023
Dealer North EW Vul

KQ97
T
T9653
T52
85
J653
J2
Q8763
AJ6
AK874
KQ84
4
T432
Q92
A7
AKJ9

Many Easts played in 1H! There are a number of reasons why that should not happen.

X-Clubs 60

Now for our statistical analysis of the specific situation we encountered, with the eight card heart suit missing the ace. This is not all that uncommon and can happen with any suit, and you have to guess whether to bid 3NT or game in the suit. If opener does not turn up with the ace, you can almost certainly give up on No Trumps, but in real life you have no way of knowing that partner does have that crucial card. The same can apply to a suit like AQJ10xxx where the crucial card is the king. But why guess when you have the Evil 2NT at your disposal? Responder calling 2NT will allow you to find out whether opener has that missing card in your suit, and you can then make your decision based on it.

I asked Mike to give me a random deal of 20 hands where opener has a balanced hand and cover (minimum Qxx) in every suit, which means that opener has the ace of hearts. Then counted the number of times either 3NT or 4H could be made ‘double dummy’ according to Deep Finesse (DF). In practice of course things are a bit different at the table and defenders can often be depended on to defend badly, especially when declarer’s hand is hidden. I have found that in such cases, 3NT is harder to defend against than game in a suit. But let’s look at the cold hard ‘facts’ that DF presents us with on the small sample of 20 deals:

Just as a reminder, let me repeat the East-West hands as they were when the deal was played.
Board 18 Dealer East NS Vul

4
KQJ96432
J6
T6
QJ8
A8
K94
A8743

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