29.01.13 Board 12

Sometimes life can be very unjust.

You reach the excellent contract of 6S by East on this board.
South leads a club which you win with the ace, discarding a heart.
The next task is to draw trumps.
You don't know who has the queen, and, if they split 3-2, it is an even money guess.
But what if they split 4-1? The best hope seems to be to cash the ace then run the 10. This will be successful any time north has 4, or if North has the singleton queen. Overall this line avoids a trump loser 51% of the time.
In this case you will be unlucky as South wins trick 3 with the queen, returns a club which you ruff and draw the last trump.

The contract now depends on avoiding a diamond loser.
Again, if the diamonds split 3-2 you have an even money guess. So you consider the options if they split 4-1.  You could lead the King and then run the Jack. This will be successful if South has either the singleton queen or nine, or if North has the singleton queen - 3 of 10 possible arrangements of a 4-1 split. So you lead the 2 from the East hand finessing the 10. If the finesse is successful you will return to hand to repeat the finesse. This will succeed if South has Qxxx - 4 of the possible 10 combinations. Overall this line has a 45% chance of avoiding a diamond loser.
 - but in this case you will be unlucky again!!

Overall, the probability of success in this contract is about 73% - so you should certainly be there.

Before anyone else points it out, you already know that South has 3 spades and North has 2. This means that North has more chance of having a long diamond suit. This information slightly alters the probabilities, and may make the alternative line better. I will leave the calculations to others.

The basic probabilities of breaks in suits of various lengths may be found in Wikipedia under "bridge probabilities".

V North ♠ 8 5 ♥ J 8 7 5 ♦ Q 9 6 ♣ K J 7 2
D NV West ♠ A 10 9 ♥ A 10 4 2 ♦ K J 10 ♣ A 10 9	Board12	NV East ♠ K J 7 4 2 ♥ K 9 3 ♦ A 8 5 4 2 ♣ -
	V South ♠ Q 6 3 ♥ Q 6 ♦ 7 3 ♣ Q 8 6 5 4 3	7 11 16 6

26.01.13 Board 3

Congratulations to Winnie and Nigel on winning the Club Championship Pairs on Saturday; and a big thank you to Anne, Winnie and Nigel for organising the event.

Only one EW pair reached the par contract of 6S on this board.
Can anybody suggest a good bidding sequence?

Sorry, but I still haven't found how to stop the North hand shifting to the left.

NV North ♠ K 2 ♥ Q J 10 8 7 ♦ 10 6 3 ♣ 8 7 4
V West ♠ A 10 8 7 5 4 ♥ - ♦ A J 7 4 ♣ 9 5 2	Board3	V East ♠ Q J ♥ K 9 4 ♦ K Q 8 5 ♣ A K Q 6
	D NV South ♠ 9 6 3 ♥ A 6 5 3 2 ♦ 9 2 ♣ J 10 3	6 20 9 5

22.01.13 Board 3

This week's post mortem - board 3

I chose this to illustrate the advantages of opening 1NT on 6-3-2-2 hands where the 6-card suit is a minor.
The bidding could be P-1NT-P-P-P. Theoretically, this contract should make 8 tricks for a score of +120. In practice, most Norths led a club, and South failed to find a spade switch after gaining the lead with AH. Several EW pairs made 10 tricks for a score of +180 and 13 match points. Those who pushed to 3NT did even better, scoring 18MP - but would not have done so had a spade lead been found.
Wests who opened 1D usually played in 2D (presumably the sequence was P-1D-P-1H-P-2D-P-P-P) making 9 tricks for a score of +110 and only 5MP.
I won't go into detail about what happened at our table - it is too embarrassing; but it was our worst board of the evening!

Andy Conway

NV North ♠ A K 10 7 ♥ J 10 5 ♦ 4 ♣ J 9 8 7 5
V West ♠ J 5 4 ♥ K 8 ♦ A 9 7 6 5 3 ♣ A Q	Board3	V East ♠ 8 6 2 ♥ Q 7 6 4 ♦ K J 10 2 ♣ K 3
	D NV South ♠ Q 9 3 ♥ A 9 3 2 ♦ Q 8 ♣ 10 6 4 2	9 9 14 8