Computers are Useless

 

Computers Are Useless. They Can Only Give You Answers by Foxymoron

The heading above is apparently attributed to Pablo Picasso, in the Paris Review of 1964. I don't have the publication to check it out, but the quote has stuck.  A computer analysis of the North-South hands would have been useful today in deciding whether or not to bid game. South opened a weak Two Spades, second in hand, favourable and North enquired with 2NT. We play Ogust here, and South's 3D showed a good suit, but the lower end of the point range, so 5-7, with the higher end being 7-9. I chose the former as unsupported jacks are particularly poor, not worth one point. North signed off, and one can plug the NS hands into a computer (afterwards of course) and it assesses the chances of game as being about 68%. So you want to be there. And the other game which is possible is 3NT but this is somewhat worse, needing diamonds 4-4 and spades 3-2, around 23% only. In practice it might do better as they rarely lead a diamond from Hxx especially when partner did not double 3D.

Still, having missed a good game, I compounded this by making the minimum number of tricks and was quite pleased to get 20% on the board. West led two top diamonds, East showing an even number, and exited, slightly oddly, with a trump. I wondered why West did not play a club.

I drew trumps in three rounds, finding that West had three of those, and was at a crossroads. Two lines suggest themselves. One is to play three rounds of hearts from the top, and if the long heart is not good or the queen of hearts does not drop, take the club finesse.  This is about 52% for the hearts coming in, and about another 24% for the club finesse. About 76%. The other is to play the ace of hearts and a small heart towards South, and if it loses to the queen, rise on the club return and you make ten if either hearts are 3-3 or East has the queen of hearts, or West has four hearts and the king of clubs (as she will be squeezed). This seems to be about 68% for the hearts producing three tricks, and around 15% extra for the heart-club squeeze, so over 80%. I went for this line without any real confidence, and ended with a poor score when I lost to Qx of hearts. A complicating factor is that playing the ace, king and another heart might make 11 tricks on a good day.

One final line is to play to the ace of hearts and duck a heart if East does not play the queen on the way back. However, your entries are tangled if West wins the heart with the doubleton queen and plays a club, so this line does not look right, even if East will rarely duck with the queen of hearts.

Six pairs bid and made 4S. Three were assisted by a heart discard from East on the third round of trumps, and they had little difficulty setting up their tenth trick. And one had a club switch at trick two, and finessed after which they had little choice but to drop the doubleton queen of hearts. Another drew trumps and led the ace and king of hearts and that worked well. Perhaps I should have reflected on the curious incident of the dog that did not bark in the night. Maybe they did not switch to a club as they knew that I would  have been forced to finesse, and then drop the doubleton queen of hearts!