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14 Points Schmoints

ª 9 7 6 2

© J

¨ A 10 9 6 5

§ 7 6 2

ª 5 3                           ª 4

© A K 9 5 4               © Q 7 6

¨ K 4 3                       ¨ Q 8 7 2

§ Q J 9                       § A 10 5 4 3

ª A K Q J 10 8

© 10 8 3 2

¨ J

§ K 8

South               West                North               East

1ª                   2©                   2ª                   3©

4ª                   End

 

This hand is not very interesting for the play – 11 tricks will come home on any lead, even a trump1.

 

It is South’s jump to 4ª which is of interest.  Avid point counters will say “but he only had 14 points”.  That was before the magnificent distribution was taken into account.

 

Note on the play:

1.      On a trump lead win in hand and play ¨A and ruff a diamond.  Play a heart and win the trump return in dummy with ª9.  Ruff another diamond and ruff a heart.  Ruff a diamond, establishing ¨10 and ruff a heart.  Cash ¨10 and play a club from dummy for the overtrick.  That guarantees 10 tricks if diamonds are 4-3 and spades 2-1.  Even if diamonds are 5-2 there are 10 tricks if West has ¨K x or ¨Q x and if all else fails §K is a 50% chance.  On any other lead ruff three hearts in dummy and play towards §K at some stage.

 

On the bidding North can have very little but one thing is nearly certain – he has a singleton (or void) heart as West has at least five and East three.  So South can see eight or nine easy tricks.  Let us consider the hands that North could have.

 

a)      He does not need four trumps to raise – with a singleton heart and some outside values three trumps is enough.  So he could have:

 

  1. ª9 x x; ©x; ¨A x x x; §Q J x x x.  That is plenty for ten tricks.

 

Or, slightly less attractive:

 

  1. ª9 x x; ©x; ¨K Q 10 x; §Q 7 6 5 4.  Here ten tricks are still easy with reasonable breaks.

 

Or even:

 

  1. ª9 x x; ©x; Q 10 7 6 5; §A 5 4 3.  If the defence lead trumps at each opportunity only nine tricks will come home unless a squeeze can be engineered.

 

b)      If North has four trumps almost any hand with a high honour in clubs or diamonds will do.  That is the minimum he can have.  For example:

 

  1. ª9 x x x; ©x; ¨K 10 8 7 6; §Q 5 4 3.  Ten tricks should be easy if ¨K is well placed and possible even if not.

 

  1. Or he could have either ¨A or §A in any hand with four trumps for a virtual lay-down, as he did.

 

What about the opponents?  Can they make 4©?

 

If North has a singleton small heart and no ace as in hand ii above they may make 10 tricks.  Five hearts, four clubs and ¨A is enough.  Indeed, if §K is under §A, they might even make 11 tricks if partner has nothing in clubs.

 

But against almost all the other hands you will have defence in 4© unless the short trump hand (East) is also short in spades.  Even so, with the actual hand, declarer needs to be very careful not to go several down.  The defence can always make one spade, two diamonds with a ruff and a club but if declarer misplays the trumps and has the singleton spade instead of dummy he will be forced at trick two and then lose trump control for a disaster.  

 

So 4© is unlikely to make and 5© will be doubled for one to three off.  With West’s actual hand you will be left to play 4ª in peace.

 

So how can you justify South’s leap to 4ª? 

 

a)      He has only five losers and that is two fewer than an average opening bid. 

 

b)      Another way of counting is to add some points for distribution.  If you read my paper on point count bidding you will see that South’s hand has the following features:

 

·        It has three “ace-tens” although ©10 is of dubious value.

·        The suit texture is good (well, that is the understatement of the week!)

·        The singleton diamond and doubleton club are worth four extra points.

 

Even though ¨J should be discounted the total point counts are now a whopping 19, not the original 14.  So the bid of 4ª seems eminently sensible.