HBJ : I am a little perplexed about this hand because why should declarer place the king of clubs with West. Surely there is room for that card to be in East’s hand, if a weak 2 in spades promises 5-9 points.
If one assumes the king of clubs is with East ( and why not ) then after 2 rounds of diamonds and 4 rounds of hearts, East must come down to 7 cards in the black suits …….probably keeping 4 S and 3 clubs. Now the play involves cashing 2 top spades, throwing East in with a third to cash his two winners….but now he is end played in clubs.

To HBJ: there are two answers to your very legitimate question. The first is in the quotation at the top of the article…
My second answer is that when West is allowed to cash his diamonds he is actually squeezing his own partner. At trick 11, East must discard to come down to 2 cards, yet he has to keep the SQ. Therefore only one club, whether it’s the king or not. On this trick Declarer will discard the S4, keeping CQ7 in Dummy and CA8 in hand.
I hope our host will not shame me for saying something stupid…

First P.S. This is the kind of brilliant play I am capable of when looking at all 4 hands with my morning coffee, never at the bridge table.

Second P.S. I confess that like you HBJ, after seeing the HK and DKQJ with West, I would place the CK with East (he has to have something besides his SQ) and would attempt to end-play him. But a question – to our host – just occured to me: Does it mean that if West does not cash his last diamond and instead exits with a small club he would give declarer a problem?

On BWA you suggest passing partner’s cuebid. Thqt can’t be right; what were you trying to say?

David, East doubled the cue-bid.

Hi Michael
As declarer I still would not know what to play at trick 12 when LHO exits with a club. If RHO has bare (by now) KC then obviously a low club needs to be played from dummy but if LHO has it then Q needs to be played. Which brings us back to HBJs point. I am sure Bobby will make everything clear as usual
Regards

HBJ : Just to clarify, the first six tricks go by the way of two rounds of diamonds ( declarer ducking first) and 4 hearts. This clarifies East’s 7-2-1-3 holding. Now comes to top spades to throw East in with 2 spade tricks. Now declarer just sits and waits to take 2 clubs to make his contract, PROVIDING EAST HAS THE KING OF CLUBS.

Hi Bobby, Gents,

On BWTA is there a case for using redbl to show a half stop? This helps partner with Ax(x) to get into NT (clearly the right way up if he only has 2 spades) while a slightly stronger hand (e.g. With SKxx) could bid 3S now angling for partner to bid NT with (say) Qx or J10x.

On the main column hand, though, it is hard to blame that West for doubling although if East had held SKJ10 and North xxx, results would have been similar. Perhaps misfits in defence should also sound alarm bells on occasion – West can’t make any use of East’s spade assets here, even if they were better.

Regards,

Iain

Hi HBJ, Michael, David, Yasser and Iain, some more than once and do not forget JHG, HBJ’s alter ego,

First and foremost, to the column hand and also considering the quote. As all of you are apparently well aware, declarer has a choice of end plays, whether to trust East’s weak two bid, which in spite of 7, not 6, weak spades seems to need the king of clubs to justify his vulnerable bid, while West, although not inclined to bid regardless of either having the king of clubs or not simply because South’s 2NT bid before him eliminated the wind from his sails, by assuring the EW misfit, but at the same time created great hope for a significant set to NS.
However to now double may cause wary opponents to seek safety (likely 4 clubs rather than risk West’s judgment).

No such happening since South stuck it out, so let us proceed to the next critical point, the play. The evidence, as determined by the declarer will be based on the bidding, already discussed (indicating perhaps 80% or more that East, not West held the club monarch, although the final double by West certainly helped, an excellent declarer, David Berkowitz,with his decision), however the discarding, man (or woman made), not computer shuffled, may lead to an opposite conclusion.

What it narrows down to is declarer getting a reading on his EW opponents as to whether, by their table demeanor, the mood felt by declarer at the table, emanating from his opponents, led him to the right conclusion.

Both declarer’s triumphed, in spite of both having plenty of time to reconstruct the defensive hands and, of course, to remember the bidding.

In retrospect, all I can do is pass on to you what I think, of course, based on my experience. Table feel, at this high-level, will always trump technical ability, and being declarer and then of course, totally in charge, instead of when instead, on defense, having to coordinate with partner, sometimes a daunting task, is enabling and one definition, that of world class (which is sometimes casually bantered around) comes into play and that is exactly the status which a huge percentage of time makes the winning final decision. No more, no less!

The lesson learned and to satisfy the bridge gods is that sometimes the greed represented by a final double, gives away some hands, and especially to the highest level world class players, suggesting that, at least on that hand, it would be better to not double and also check one’s emotions at the door and valiantly not give away one’s optimism while defending, otherwise the chances for success dwindle.

I appreciate all of you for your interest in this hand, which truly represents one of the superior qualities of our game, high level judgment as to where important cards lie.

Michael: Thanks; I guess I haven’t had my coffee yet.

Could West have considered making the incredibly bold move of discarding the 9C making it impossible to throw him in with a diamond and making it look like his partner had the KC? By that stage, his partner had already shown that his hand was very weak for the opening bid so it would be reasonable for declarer to place the KC with East, not West.

Or is this sheer fantasy?

Hi Jeff,

Not fantasy at all and very good bridge, since these situations are always mind games, usually conducted between peers who are keeping up with both the offensive and defensive options.

The very best players win these psychological battles, not unlike superior poker players win their bluffs and also tantalize opponents to call them when they want them to.

Nothing magic about it, just an understanding of mind battles and the way to win them.

BTW, the lesser known player has a definite advantage since it is usually well understood how good the ultra experienced one is, but are not so educated about his opponent, so usually lesser known, but ultra aware, are the winning weapons.