Excerpt from Inferences at Bridge

By Marshall Miles

©2002

Master Point Press

www.masterpointpress.com

Okay, so this isn't among the easiest topics to deal with. Deliberately or not we all do it at one time or another. Hesitation before playing to a trick or making a call in the auction gets a lot of attention, especially during appeals committees at a major tournament or team competition. While you are expected to do most of your thinking when not bidding or playing, there are times when the auction or card play doesn't always give you enough opportunity to consider the right call or play. Marshall Miles looks at ethical ways of hesitating.

ETHICAL HESITATION

Since this is a book on inferences, it may seem out of place to give you the following advice. But, because it is so important, I'll do it anyway. If you are the partner of the opening leader, when the dummy comes down, you should take about thirty seconds before playing to the first trick (whether you have a problem or not). Obviously, if you take time only when you have a problem, it gives information to partner and declarer, and when you have a singleton in the suit led, you may be accused of coffee-housing. That is why you should always take the time to plan the defense so that no one can draw any inferences from your hesitation.

Declarer ought to take some time before playing from the dummy to plan his play, and if he does, his time can be counted toward your thirty seconds. But don't let him set the tempo of the play by calling for dummy's card immediately. Even if you don't need the time, partner may. When the play to the first trick is completed in three seconds, and declarer leads up to a king-jack at Trick 2, don't blame partner if he is not prepared to duck quickly (or play the ace before he loses it, whichever is right). This thirty-second hesitation does not slow up the game because the play will go much faster afterwards.

Why do you need thirty seconds (at least) for planning at the first trick?

I will give you a few examples to show you why.

North-South are vulnerable, and the bidding is

Partner leads the king of clubs and you (East) need to plan the defense. This involves visualizing the probable distribution of all four hands, estimating your chances of defeating the contract, and anticipating how the play is likely to go.

Declarer probably has a six-card suit for his vulnerable weak two-bid, and if so, he has six heart tricks. (If South is missing an honor, partner will play it on the first heart trick). So you can count a minimum of nine tricks for declarer since the spade finesse will work. If declarer has any four-card suit to go with his six hearts, he has a minimum of ten tricks. Rather assume the situation is hopeless no matter what you do, you should assume that declarer has 1-6-3-3, 2-6-2-3, 2-6-3-2, 3-6-2-2, 3-6-3-1, or 3-6-1-3 distribution. Declarer's bidding gives you no further clues.

What about partner's bidding? His most likely distribution, considering his takeout double, is 4-1-4-4. If he had five or more spades, he probably would have bid 2ª rather than doubling since he can hardly be strong enough to double and bid spades later.

How about high cards? If declarer has the king of spades or the jack-ten of spades, that will give him three spade tricks (plus six heart tricks and a club), so you must assume that he doesn't have either spade holding. If declarer has ¨ Q10x, he can't be prevented from scoring a diamond trick, so you have to assume that his diamonds are weaker, and it is too late to win a spade trick before dummy's long club is established if declarer has 3-6-1-3 distribution.

Didn't it take at least fifteen seconds to figure this out? And your task is only half completed. Let's assume that declarer has 3-6-2-2 distribution and no king of spades, no jack-ten of spades, and no queen-ten of diamonds. Can anything go wrong? There is a possibility that partner will be squeezed in spades and clubs. Suppose, when declarer plays his last trump, dummy has ª AQ5 and § 7. Partner has ª KJx and a high club. What can partner discard? If he discards a club, dummy's seven will be high; if he discards a spade, declarer will discard the club, finesse the queen of spades, and cash the ace, making the remaining spade in his hand high.

There are two possible lines of defense. The most promising defense is to play the fourth round of clubs to eliminate the threat card before declarer can attain this end position. When declarer wins the ace of clubs and leads a diamond from dummy, you could win the king and return a club. Declarer would ruff the third round, but partner would lead the fourth round of clubs upon winning his ace of diamonds. That would destroy the threat. But partner might have a difficult guess later in the play if declarer runs his trumps upon ruffing the third club. The better line of defense is to duck the diamond, letting partner win declarer's queen and lead clubs; then duck another diamond lead from dummy with your remaining ¨ KJ6 so that partner could win the ten and lead the last club.

If you tell me that you could figure out declarer's probable distribution and the necessary defense in less than thirty seconds, I won't believe you! In fact, if you become aware of the threat of a squeeze, you may take a minute to work out the details. If you trust to instinct instead of doing your mental work, declarer will make the hand when he holds

ª 10xx © KQJxxx ¨ Qx § xx

He will win the opening lead in dummy, lead a small diamond to the queen and partner's ace, ruff the third round of clubs, and lead a heart to the ace. When he leads a low diamond from dummy, you will make the fatal play of an honor instead of ducking.

The correct defense on the previous hand could easily be overlooked because the dull-looking dummy gave no clue that you would have a problem in the defense. It is also easy to overlook the correct defense with the next hand:

The play actually went as follows: the deuce of hearts was led, dummy winning with the ace. A low spade was led to the ace (heart discard by East), and the nine of diamonds was led and ducked by West and dummy, and it won the trick! Declarer was able to establish the long diamond, making four diamond tricks and his contract.

Since East's most probable distribution was 0-5-3-5, several players said that it was West's fault for not splitting his diamond honors when the nine was led, but the true culprit was East. He must hope that South has only seven spades, in which case declarer needs four diamond tricks. If South has two diamonds, he can't go wrong, whether he finesses the ten or plays the top diamonds and ruffs the third round. So East must assume that South has a singleton diamond, and he should discard a diamond on the second trick (the five if playing standard signals, the eight if playing upside-down signals).

An alternative defense is to show distribution in hearts on the first trick and distribution in clubs on the second trick. But it is not clear what these signals mean. The discard of a diamond is unambiguous. After the diamond discard, West will split his honors. If there is no discard, he should assume declarer has two diamonds, and he should play small. But it will take a while for East to see the correct defense, and it will take a while for West to see that he should split his honors only after a diamond discard, and not otherwise. Without the thirty-second huddle before playing to the first trick, East will miss the crucial play, and West will have to guess what to do (and do it quickly if the winning play is to duck)

Here's another example where you need to work things out right at the start of the hand:

The bidding is lNT - 3NT, and partner leads the four of spades. Declarer quickly calls for the six from dummy. This is what you (East) should be thinking:

'I'm glad partner led a spade and that I have such good help in the suit. How many spades can partner have? No more than five, since the only lower missing spot card is the three. That means declarer started with four.

'How good can partner's spades be? He would not lead low without an honor, so he must have at least the ten-spot, but I hope that he has the ace or queen. If he had ª A10943 or ª Q10943, he probably would have led the ten (or the nine if we play that the nine shows zero or two higher).

'Suppose declarer wins the first trick. Is it likely that he can run off nine tricks before we regain the lead? It depends upon where declarer's points are. If he has ¨ KQx and the ace of hearts, he could take nine quick tricks. But partner should have about 8 HCP on this bidding, and it would be very unlucky if partner's only side strength were in clubs. The usual play from my holding is the king (third hand high). Could it possibly be right to play the jack instead?

'Yes, it could, because I have no quick entry, and I've seen this combination before. If partner has led from ª Q10xxx it won't matter whether I play the king or the jack because declarer will surely duck, and then I'll play the other honor. Theoretically, it won't matter which honor I play when partner has led from ª Q9xxx either; however, in this case if I play the jack and declarer wins with the ace, partner might not play the suit upon regaining the lead because he will think declarer has ª AK10. Perhaps I could recover by giving partner a Smith echo later, and declarer will probably duck his ace anyway rather than taking it on the first round, so it probably won't cost to play the jack unless partner has precisely ª A10943 and elected to lead low. But I will gain by playing the jack if partner has led from the more likely holding of ª A9xxx (leaving declarer with ª Q108x). Declarer would win the queen and partner could later lead to my king for a spade return to his K-9-3 through declarer's 10-8.’

If you had not formed the habit of waiting thirty seconds to play to the first trick, but took your time on this occasion, imagine what the opponents (and perhaps the director and the appeals committee) would say when the hand was over. 'You made it pretty easy for partner to return a spade after your long study at the first trick. It was obvious that you were doing something unusual: But if you always take your thirty seconds, you will prevail over your accusers and have a clear conscience besides.

Two more hands should be enough to convince you of the importance of waiting approximately thirty seconds before playing to the first trick.

West led the jack of spades, won by dummy's ace. Declarer quickly played a low diamond from dummy, and East was unprepared. He ducked (quickly), which could conceivably be the right play if declarer had ¨ J9x or three small diamonds. But if he had taken his time before playing to the first trick, East would realize that it was a very strange play to attack diamonds rather than clubs, and declarer was probably trying to steal his ninth trick.

Why would he play diamonds in that way rather than taking a simple finesse (later)? Because he was weak in hearts and didn't mind losing a diamond trick to West, but hoped to talk East out of winning the first trick and leading through his heart holding. If East had figured this out, it is obvious that, upon winning the ¨K, he should return the nine of hearts, followed by the jack.

This was the whole deal:

Next I will give you a very challenging problem. The right play wasn't made at the table by my partner. None of my friends, when presented with the problem, got it right, and I doubt that I would have made the right play if I had held the crucial hand. So don't become discouraged if you don't analyze correctly. But I think, if you take your time (perhaps thirty- five or forty seconds!) and reason logically, you will come up with the right answer.

The bidding, with both sides vulnerable, IMP scoring, was as follows:

Partner leads the nine of diamonds, dummy plays the ten, and you win with the king. How do you plan the defense?

First, you need to decide what everyone has, to the best of your ability. Surely declarer has a five-card club suit, which means that partner has doubled with a three-card holding. He would not often do that, at IMPs, without a misfit for you, which means that he probably has a singleton diamond. Besides, if he had a doubleton diamond, he would be 4-4 in the majors and would have responded 1©. Partner therefore must have 5-4-1-3 distribution.

So what high cards can he have for his double? Surely two aces and a probable club trick. If his probable club trick was the king, giving him

ª Axxxx © Axxx ¨ x § Kxx

he might have opened the bidding and, if not, he would surely have bid 4ª instead of doubling. But if he had the queen or queen-jack of clubs, he might figure his club holding was worth nothing offensively, only a trick on defense. Quite likely his hand is

ª Axxxx © Axxx ¨ x ª Qxx

That would give him a sound double, even at IMPs, but with declarer void in spades you have no assurance of a set. Unfortunately declarer can also place the cards, and he knows partner has two aces.

In your typical local game, against mediocre opponents, you would cash the top diamonds and give partner a ruff. He would lead a low heart, ducked to your queen. You would return a heart to get a ruff and lead another diamond, enabling partner to win his queen of clubs for down three. But a competent declarer would not misguess the hearts. He would play the king, cash two rounds of trumps, and play the diamonds, discarding a heart from dummy, then duck a heart to your queen and later take a ruffing finesse against partner's ace of hearts, for +670! That's the way the play went at our table.

This was the full deal:

It would probably take you fifteen seconds to reconstruct the concealed hands and at least another fifteen seconds to figure out the best defense. If partner has the queen of clubs, you don't need to give him a ruff with his natural trump trick, and you have to hope that he has the nine or ten of hearts. The correct defense is to return the queen of hearts (at either Trick 2 or Trick 3). Partner will duck it to the king. Then if declarer does not play two rounds of trumps, partner will give you a heart ruff. If declarer plays two rounds of trumps, when partner wins a heart trick, he will cash the queen of clubs and exit by leading the ace of spades. You will take two hearts, two diamonds and a club, for down one.

For more on this and other situations where inferences are taken, pick up the book at your local bridge supplier or bookstore.