Post by ais523Matchpoints. Opponents vulnerable.
You hold KT8.KJ9.K643.A95 (spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs).
(Pass) Pass (1D) Pass
(1S) Pass (2C) Pass
(2S) Pass (2NT) All Pass
The opponents are playing 4-card majors; 1NT would have been 12-14.
None of their bids were alerted, and thus you didn't ask the meanings.
a) What do you expect the opponents to hold?
To me, the bidding here looked odd, so I decided that it was more likely
that the opponents had landed in a hole in their bidding system than
that they really had their bids (especially as I was holding 14 HCP).
Co Wiersma was correct about what had actually happened. RHO had a
minimum 1=4=4=4 hand, and the natural bidding system had no way to bid
it (diamonds then clubs is the smallest lie, as a 1NT rebid would show
15HCP). The 2NT rebid was probably a mistake. (LHO had a minimum
responding hand with 6 spades, probably not surprising.)
At the table, I was unaware of the full details of what had happened,
but assumed that the opponents had landed in a misfit and that their
bids were broadly shape-showing; also that the bidding was unlikely to
be replicated at other tables.
Post by ais523b) What do you lead?
With a holding like this, there are two issues: a) can you avoid giving
away a trick, b) is there a way to take an extra trick?
None of the suits are particularly good leads in the abstract. I
looking for a safe lead, the consensus seems to be that a spade lead is
broadly safe, on the basis that any spade honours are probably with
LHO and thus our King will get finessed anyway. As it happens, any
spade lead is equivalent on the actual hand; none loses a trick, and
none gains a trick either.
On the other hand, this is matchpoints, and the opponents are probably
in an unusual contract. If they have stronger hands, we have to try to
defeat it. If their hands are weaker, we probably have a partscore our
way, and badly need a penalty of 200 rather than just 100 to score well
on the board. So I looked for a more aggressive lead.
The situation in hearts is likely to be key to the hand. I think it's
possible to reason it out: LHO apparently has 6 spades (whereas RHO's
shape is less certain), and RHO doesn't seem concerned about hearts for
notrump. So it's more likely that RHO has at least one high heart. That
means that to get all our tricks, we'll need to take a finesse towards
our own heart, and in particular leading the HK is very risky; in most
of the cases where it doesn't blow a trick immediately (by preventing
us sneaking a trick past the HA or HQ), the HJ would have done just as
well. My lead at the table was H9, which turned out to be safe but
didn't gain any additional tricks.
It turns out that partner had AT2 in hearts. Here's the full deal:
Me: KT8.KJ9.K643.A95
Dummy: AQ9765.764.T92.6
Partner: J32.AT2.Q7.JT843
Declarer: 4.Q853.AJ85.KQ72
A double-dummy computer analysis gave me a pretty interesting revelation
about the best lead on this particular hand (although I think it's a
good choice in general too, if you're looking for something aggressive).
The way in which it ends up working is pretty surprising, at least to
me, but I think the general principle could have been worked out at the
table (even if it wouldn't be immediately obvious why it ends up
helping!). I don't think we'd have found the winning defence at the
table, but it's nice to see it working on a computer after the fact.
I won't post it yet in case anyone wants to try to figure it out for
themself, but I'll post it in a few days.
--
ais523