May 2019 - 51

Intermediate Players

Mike's Bridge Lesson
BY MIKE LAWRENCE

michaelslawrence.com

Guessing a line of play
Dlr: South ♠ A 5 3
Vul: Both ♥ Q 7
♦64
♣ 10 8 7 5 3 2
♠ K Q 10 9 8 6 2
♥93
♦KJ8
♣A
West

North

Pass
2♠
All Pass

East
Pass

South
1♠
4♠

South gets to open in first seat and
starts with 1♠. It would be an error
to open any other number of spades.
South has a full opening bid and no serious worry yet that the opponents own
the hand. North isn't a passed hand,
so at this point, South doesn't want to
close things out with a preempt. That
is a somewhat common bidding error
that should be avoided.
West passes and North raises to 2♠,
which East passes. This is all good
news for South. South started with 13
points but his hand just grew in value.
It's correct to bid 4♠.
South gets to play 4♠ with the lead
of the ♥A. The first thing South should
do is ask East what their lead agreements are. East says they lead the
ace from holdings headed by the ace
and king. This becomes a moot point
because West continues with the ♥K
next. East plays the ♥2 and ♥4 at
tricks one and two. West switches to
the ♠J and South wins with the king.
The easy part of this hand is spot-

ting the danger. South needs East to
have a diamond honor, and then South
needs to guess which one it is. If East
has both of them, this isn't much of a
problem.
Can West have the ♦A and ♦Q? (If
he does, South won't make 4♠.) It's
close to impossible. If West has the
♥A K (which South has already seen)
and the ♦A Q , he probably would have
acted over 1♠. He might have made a
takeout double. He might have bid a
suit. No matter what he has, it is probable that he would have something to
bid if he held all of those cards.
South might flirt with the club suit
next, but in order for them to be useful
the suit would have to divide 3-3, and
after cashing the ♣A, he would need
three entries to dummy. He just doesn't
have them.
Back to Plan A, which is to guess the
diamond suit. East played a low spade
at trick three, and when declarer goes
to dummy with the ♠A at trick four,
West discards a diamond. This reinforces your thinking that West would
have bid.
When a diamond is led from dummy,
East plays low. Would you play the
king or the jack? Why? What are the
chances of your guess being right?
Play the king. It's a virtual certainty
that it will win. Here are some possible
hands for West to hold:
♠J ♥A K 6 ♦A 7 5 3 2 ♣J 9 6 4
He would have doubled with this
hand:
♠J ♥A K J 6 ♦A 7 5 2 ♣Q 9 6 4

He would have doubled with this
hand, too:
♠J ♥A K 10 8 6 ♦A 7 5 2 ♣9 6 4
He might have done something with
this. This is perhaps the one hand that
has the ♥A K and the ♦A which would
pass South's 1♠ bid. Note that if West
had any of the missing club honors, he
would rush to bid over 1♠. It's very
difficult to concoct a hand where West
has the ♥A K and the ♦A and passes
1♠.
All of this leads to the conclusion
that playing the king is correct. I
estimate that it will be the winning
play over 90% of the time. What's your
estimate?
Here's the layout that existed:
♠A53
♥Q7
♦64
♣ 10 8 7 5 3 2
♠J
♠74
♥AKJ8
♥ 10 6 5 4 2
♦Q9752
♦ A 10 3
♣J64
♣KQ9
♠ K Q 10 9 8 6 2
♥93
♦KJ8
♣A
Postmortem
The big deal here is that you pay
attention to what happened in the
bidding and the play. If you do this,
the guess in diamonds will be routine.
If you weren't paying attention, your
diamond guess might be flawed.
◾
May 2019 Bridge Bulletin

51
http://www.michaelslawrence.com
May 2019

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