November Problem

	J 8 6 5 3 8 A 8 6 5 A 5 4
		A K 7 2 6 3 K 7 4 2 Q 10 7
All vul.

West Pass

North Pass

East Dbl

South 2 All Pass

Trick 1. W

Lead J

2nd 5

3rd K

4th 3

South plays 2 doubled. You, West, win partner’s jack of diamonds lead with the king. Plan the defense. (If you lead a high spade, partner will play the four and declarer the ten. As it happens, you and your partner are playing that in this auction, 2NT by partner would have been Lebensohl and not natural after your double.)

As is our custom, the free play will go to the correct answer from the player with the fewest masterpoints. “Correct” is a relative term; just saying “I lead X,” even if X is the winning play, will probably not qualify unless nobody else finds the play. You need to furnish some justification for your play. (On the other hand, a briefly or poorly stated but correct justification will fully qualify, if I can figure it out. This is not an essay contest.) I am the sole judge of what constitutes “correct.” Send answers to JohnCTorrey@aol.com.

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October Answer

	Q 5 A 10 9 3 2 8 4 10 6 3 2
J 6 K 5 4 A J 10 9 6 3 2 K		10 9 8 Q J 8 7 K 7 J 9 7 5
E-W Vul	A K 7 4 3 2 6 Q 5 A Q 8 4

West 2 Pass All Pass

North Pass 3

East Pass Pass Pass

South 1 2 4

You played 4 after West overcalled in Diamonds. West led the four of hearts.

The Rabbi’s Rule applies on this hand: “If the king is singleton, play the ace.” (On average you can expect to encounter more than two singleton kings in a session of bridge – one reason that I no longer announce, “Watch out for singleton kings” at the start of a session.)

This problem attracted several good responses: everyone got the message that West had the king of clubs. (The lack of a sequence lead in diamonds or hearts was a big clue, together with East’s passes.) So nobody took the club finesse, most planning to play the ace and then a small one. But on the actual hand you have to play the ace before drawing trumps; when the king falls, you win the ace and then the queen of spades, and then lead a small club from dummy. Three responders did this: the winners this month are Michael Ventura, John Cobb, Lance Shull, and Collins Williams. Collins Williams gets the free play.

Entrants who constructed the unseen hands inaccurately mostly focused on West, but would have done better to consider East’s passes. With a high diamond and KQJxxx of hearts, East would open two hearts – so the heart lead is not a singleton. With something like the actual hand but including the king of clubs, East probably has a bid on the second round.

This is the first Teaser that I did not draw from my own experience. I am told that Bob Hamman played the original hand and led a club to the ace at trick two.

September, Again

My explanation of the September left out some background on signaling agreements that people have when a winner is the opening lead and the dummy has a singleton.

As I acknowledged, the standard agreement is "suit preference."  This is based on the idea that it is pointless to lead the original suit, which will only be trumped in the dummy.  So the question is which side suit to switch to, and the signaler indicates her preference by playing a small card for the lower ranking side suit and a high one for the higher ranking suit.  It seems that "everyone" knows the canonical hand supporting this method:  The dummy has KJxx in both side suits and declarer has xx in one and AQ in the other, and it is worth two tricks to lead the right one.

This argument persuades most players, which is why suit preference is standard.  My own view - illustrated by three deals last month - is that it is frequently right to continue the original suit, so I prefer traditional attitude signals.  When third hand really wants a shift she can discourage continuation, and normally the opening leader will figure out what to do.

A further problem with the suit-preference standard is that players seem to suspend their thought processes when it appears.  "Partner asked for a diamond, so I lead a diamond."  Suppose the dummy has Kxx of clubs and the signaler has Axx.  All too frequently, signaler asks for a club and declarer's problems in that suit are solved. Even AJx can be a bad holding for the signaler.  In the September problem, shifting to diamonds is so strongly indicated just by the appearance of the dummy that I think East should encourage such a shift even if holding only Qxx. 

I should also mention an extension to the “attitude” approach, promoted by Matt Gannovetter in his magazine, Bridge Today. Called “Obvious Shift,” this approach recognizes that when the signaler discourages the suit that was led, she implicitly encourages a shift to the more favorable-appearing option. “Obvious Shift” formalizes this practical truth: a discouraging signal now promises values in the “obvious shift” suit. The problem is that “obvious” is frequently not so obvious; the approach now is burdened with subparagraphs and codicils identifying which suit is obvious.

My own view is that perfection in this area is impossible to achieve and counterproductive to attempt. (I haven’t even considered the many situations where, with dummy holding KJxx in both side suits, the signaler has queen in both or ace in one and queen in the other – and just wants her partner to switch to the one where he has an honor. This is a rich field, and we cheapen it by attempting to mechanize it.) The Great Bridge Illusion is that if we just have enough Rules, we can cover all situations. In fact, once you have a certain level of competence, Rules are the enemy of Thinking, and Thinking is the only way to rise above mediocrity.