Through the Pack at Glenfield

The Queen of Hearts

Last Updated – 27^th August 2005

East/West winners of Glenfield Club Pairs on 10^th November 2004 were by Peter Tyers and Margaret Glover.
Board 3 Dealer S EW Vul	North ª K76 © Q ¨ AT32 § 86543		Peter Tyers located me well on this early deal to set them on their way. Tim Glover opened the South hand one no trump and Peter Tyers overcalled two hearts. Peter Neville bid two no trumps, Lebensohl, intending to pass Tim’s forced response of three clubs. He never got the chance. Margaret Glover bid three hearts to steal the contract. Peter and Margaret had bid bravely, three clubs would have just about scraped home, but they now had to make their contract. Peter Neville led the six of spades to Tim’s ace. Tim switched to the four of hearts. Peter Tyers read the inference that Peter Neville had chosen to underlead the king of spades whereas, if he had not held me, he might have led a trump. Accordingly, Peter Tyers played the king of hearts and Peter Neville was forced to play me. Peter Tyers then led the queen of spades. Peter Neville took the king and switched to a club. The nine was played from dummy. Tim played the king and Peter won the ace and was now able to cross to dummy’s queen to lead a heart. Tim took the ace and played a diamond but Peter was able to ruff the second diamond, draw trumps and claim. Most pairs had been allowed to declare two hearts. This made just once, by Bill Youngs and Ian Thomson. Two North/South pairs beat two hearts by two tricks. They were Irene Robinson & Rene Berrington and John Glover & Ken Moseley.
West ª QT8 © KJ9832 ¨ Q § AJT		East ª J952 © 765 ¨ J876 § Q9
	South ª A43 © AT4 ¨ K954 § K72

I was also singleton in Peter Neville’s hand when Tim Glover opened the South cards one no trump in this deal from Glenfield Bridge Club on 24^th August 2005.
	North ª AT85 © Q ¨ AT976 § 753	Board 13 Dealer N Game All	West overcalled two diamonds, intended as the better minor in a hand with two major suits. North and East both passed (North might have doubled, East might have bid two hearts). South reasoned he was better than he might have been, East did not have an opening bid and West did not have enough to double one no trump, and protected with a double. West had no reason to bid, North was content but, strangely, East seemed happy to play in a potential 3-2 diamond fit in preference to a 4-4 heart suit, and passed too. North led me and switched to a club. South won the ace and cashed the ace king and jack of hearts. North discarded two clubs and a spade. South played a club, North ruffed and led a diamond. Declarer finished with just two trump tricks and a spade for five down. Tim’s double was a little risky; swap the North and East hands and West can make at least nine tricks in diamonds. However, two diamonds minus five undoubled would have been a poor score for North/South, for more than half the pairs had bid and made three no trumps. A sensible auction is perhaps one heart – two diamonds – two no trumps – three spades – three no trumps. Entries are awkward but Cynthia & Dave McLoughlin and John Morrey & Bernard Beauchamp managed to make eleven tricks. Best East/West scores went to Helen & Mike Purser and the winners, Pam Leeson & Betty Smith, who both defeated three no trumps by one trick. Click here for the results. Click here for the travellers.
West ª KQ62 © 8754 ¨ KJ2 § QT		East ª 93 © T962 ¨ 54 § KJ862
	South ª J74 © AKJ3 ¨ Q83 § A94

An unusual deal. All four players might consider themselves having a hand worthy of an opening bid. Anything could happen. And it duly did.
Board 3 Dealer S EW Vul	North ª J87632 © – ¨ A762 § Q83		Either South or West might consider their hand worthy of an opening bid of one heart. West is closer than South but neither of them are really quite good enough. If South and West both pass then North might consider opening a weak two spades. If all three pass then East might elect to open one diamond or even one no trump. The immediate consequence of South opening one heart is that it will prevent West doing so. Where West did open the bidding their destination was four hearts, usually doubled, and mostly failing by three or four tricks. Some North’s chose to bid four spades, presumably as a sacrifice over four hearts. I wonder what South was thinking? This appears to have five losers in the minor suits. Could you really blame East for leading me? I fetched the king and ace. Declarer took the trump finesse, drew trumps and threw two club losers on the jack and ten of hearts. That came to six spade tricks and two heart tricks with the ace of diamonds and a diamond ruff still to come. Four spades was bid and made by three pairs; nobody made less than ten tricks. If South does open one heart then I would expect North South to steal the hand in two or three spades. Theoretical par is, in fact, two spades just made. Best East West score went to the pair who bid three no trumps and made ten tricks. It looks as if this contract should go three down if North switches to a spade after winning the ace of diamonds. That, obviously, didn’t happen. Nor did those South’s defending against diamond contracts distinguish themselves. It is possible to take two heart ruffs, two spades and the ace of diamonds. The hand occurred during the Glenfield Club Pairs on 18^th June 2003.
West ª 95 © A97643 ¨ Q § AT72		East ª K4 © Q2 ¨ KJT854 § KJ9
	South ª AQT © KJT85 ¨ 93 § 654

7 Imps were gained for Glenfield A on this board from the match against Blaby B on 18^th December 2002 when I was correctly located.
	North ª KJ © AJT6 ¨ J32 § Q984	Dealer East EW Game	My owner passed and south opened one no trump. West passed and north bid Stayman. Had East now bid two diamonds to indicate a lead I might not have had a story to tell but, in the event, my owner passed again. South bid two diamonds to deny any four-card major. West passed again and north concluded the bidding with a jump to three no trumps. West led the fourth highest spade. The jack was played from dummy and east followed with the two to discourage. South then reflected on how best to play the hand. With one trick in the bag, four certain club tricks and four heart tricks if he could find me, the contract would make. Of course, if declarer lost a trick to me then the defence would have four diamonds and a spade available to take the contract two down. There were two possibilities. One approach was to cash four clubs early and try to judge the distribution from the discards. Best defence from west would discard the four of diamonds and the eight and ten of spades (retaining the four to create uncertainty as to whether west had started with four or five cards in the suit). Then when south assesses the situation he might reason that five of west’s cards were known (four spades and a club) while seven of east’s cards were known (four clubs and the rule of eleven showed that east had two spades higher than the five. The fact that more of east’s cards were known suggested that west was more likely to have length in hearts than east and, therefore west was more likely to have me. The other approach was to reason that if the decision was taken quickly, even if it was wrong, the defence would have less reason to find the diamond switch (particularly if the diamond honours were divided between the east and west hands). On the information available to south at trick one, four of west’s cards were known but only three of east’s. Therefore, at this stage, it was more likely that east would have me. Accordingly, south led the jack of hearts at trick two and all difficulties were resolved when east plonked me on the table.
West ª AT854 © 8753 ¨ T64 § 7		East ª 762 © Q4 ¨ AKQ7 § T532
	South ª Q93 © K92 ¨ 985 § AKJ6

The next card is the Jack of Hearts.

The previous card was the King of Hearts.

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6.1 Bidding	Strategy	Acol	Psychic Bidding
6.1.1 Hand Evaluation	Defensive Tricks	Losing Trick Count	Playing Tricks	Point Count	Total Number of Tricks	Passing
6.1.2 Opening Bids	One Club	One Diamond	One Heart	One Spade	One No Trump	Pre-empts
	Two Clubs	Two Diamonds	Two Hearts	Two Spades	Two No Trumps
6.1.3 Responding to an Opening Bid	Simple change of suit	Opener’s Rebid	Responder’s Rebid	Preference	Opener’s Second Rebid	Jump in a new suit	Responding in no trumps
	Limit Raise	Inverted Minors
6.1.3.1 Responding to 1NT	Transfers
6.1.3.2 Responding to 2NT	Transfers	Baron
6.1.4 Conventions	Stayman	Fourth Suit Forcing	Reverse	Crowhurst
6.1.4.1 Conventional Opening Bids	Lucas Twos	Multi Two Diamonds	Weak Twos
6.1.4.2 Competitive Conventions	Jump Overcall	Lebensohl	Unassuming Cue Bid	Unusual No Trump	Continuing after opponent’s take out double	Take out Double	Cue Bid
	Fishbein	Defence to 1NT	Halmic	1NT Overcall	Redouble	Simple Overcall
6.1.4.3 Slam Conventions	Blackwood	Gerber	Roman Key Card Blackwood	Splinter	Jump to 5 of a suit	Grand Slam Force	Acol Four No Trump Opening
	Asking Bids	DOPI and ROPI
6.1.5 Doubles	Optional	Penalty
6.1.6 The Protective Position
6.2 Declarer Play
6.2.1 General Technique	End Play	Squeeze	Finesse	Lose tricks early	Pin	Avoidance	Restricted Choice
6.2.2 Trump Management	Ruffing	Ruffing Losers before drawing trumps	Trump Coup	Ruffing Finesse	Loser on Loser	Coping with bad splits	Cross Ruff
	Dummy Reversal
6.3 Defence	Second Player	Signals	Third Player
6.3.1 Defensive Tactics	Forcing Defence	Passive Defence	Merrimac Coup
6.3.2 Opening Leads	Fourth Highest	Third and Fifth	MUD	Top of Nothing
6.3.3 Plays in Third Hand	Finesse Against Dummy	Finesse Against Partner
6.3.4 Entry Management	Unblocking
6.4 Probability
6.5 Glossary of Terms
7 Through the Pack