When playing in a suit contract it’s often necessary to set up winners in one of the non-trump suits to make your contract. How and when you do that is often important. That’s the theme of today’s hand.
Most North South pairs ended up in 4♥ – usually played by South. Often South treated the hand as 20-22 balanced and opened 2NT (see advanced section for more on that). North will then surely transfer to hearts. With such a powerful hand and heart support South should probably not just complete the transfer to 3♥ because North might pass. Instead he should bid 4♥ directly. This is a “super accept” – again see Advanced section for more.
At our table declarer in 4♥ was actually North. That happened because South opened a multi 2♦ (one of their options being 20-22 balanced). North responded 2♥ so after 2NT-3♦-3♥-3NT-4♥ that left her as declarer.
The normal lead was of course ♠K which declarer wins with ♠A. How would you play the hand? Many declarers started off drawing trumps which of course is often right. They played ♥A and ran ♥9 successfully finessing West’s ♥Q. Looks easy now? No!
If declarer completes drawing trumps and then plays ♣AK he is in trouble when West shows out. He can trump a club and lead a diamond but the defence can win, cash 2 spades (South has no trumps left at this point) and continue another spade. Declarer can ruff but this is with his last trump. He can cross to ♦Q and play another club. That sets the clubs up as winners but there’s no way back to the South hand to reach them. So declarer only makes ♠A, 5 trumps, ♦Q and ♣AK for 9 tricks.
Leaving a trump in South and playing ♣AK at that point is no better. West can ruff and the defence plays 2 more spades to knock out South’s 3rd trump. Declarer can ruff a 3rd club to hand and play a diamond. But the defence can again win and force out declarer’s final trump. There’s still no way to set the clubs up. This time declarer makes ♠A, a spade ruff in South, 5 trumps, ♦Q and ♣A (but not ♣K as it got ruffed) – also only 9 tricks.
It’s a bit ironic that the hand which runs out of entries is the hand with 20 points!
So what could declarer have done better? A few things:
– One could be to return a spade immediately at trick 2. This sets up the ability to trump a spade in the South hand. Remember trumping losers in the short trump hand gains tricks, ruffing in the long hand doesn’t as those trumps will win tricks anyway. If declarer makes ♠A, a spade ruff, 5 trumps, 1 diamond and ♣AK that’s 10 tricks.
– Another might be play ♦K immediately – basically with the same idea – this time to eventually trump North’s 3rd diamond in the South hand.
Declarer at our table did neither of these things though. She thought for a while and immediately played ♣AK without touching any trumps. I could ruff ♣K as West which looked like a good start for the defence. But in fact it wasn’t. We cashed 1 spade then played 2 rounds of diamonds. Declarer still delayed drawing trumps and led a 3rd club. I tried ruffing with ♥8 (can you see why? See advanced section) but declarer could overruff, draw trumps in 2 rounds with ♥K and ♥A then play a 4th club ruffing that in her own hand. At this point the South hand was high with just ♥9 and club winners in it. She made 10 tricks just losing 1 spade, ♦A and 1 club ruff. +620 was a very good score since quite a few declarers had gone off and some had not played in 4♥.
Our declarer played the hand well. She looked ahead and realised she wanted to set the clubs up. Had they been 3-2 it wouldn’t have mattered (and she might well then have made 11 tricks) but when they were 4-1 playing the suit immediately before touching trumps gave her a vital extra entry to the South hand (♥A). That gave time to not only set the clubs up but be able to get back to them later as well. It wouldn’t have helped us to continue 2 rounds of spades. Now she scores a spade ruff in dummy and can ruff a club in hand, cross to ♥A, ruff the 4th club in hand to set the suit up, then draw trumps (♥K will draw both our remaining trumps) and eventually force a diamond entry back to the club winners in South.
This illustrates a very important principle. If you need to set a side suit up, it’s very often right to start doing so immediately – even before drawing trumps. You definitely need to plan ahead to check you will have enough entries to get back to be able to cash the suit. It was the right play here even though declarer ran into an early ruff.
Key points to note
In suit contracts you often need to set a side suit up by ruffing some rounds of it to make the remaining cards winners.
If you do need to set a suit up, think about how many entries you have to that hand. Particularly later entries. You may need to start on it right away – even before drawing trumps.
Ruffing losers in the short trump hand gains tricks, ruffing losers in the long trump hand (usually) doesn’t – but it is often the way to set up your long side suit.
Treating 6322 hands with a 6 card minor as balanced is often a good idea – but it can mean missing slams.
After 2NT and a transfer, really strong hands with support should “super accept” (perhaps by jumping straight to game) if they think it will have play opposite a plausible hand for partner where they might be about to pass you in 3 major.
More advanced
Treating the South hand as 20-22 balanced is a pretty good idea. It gets the strength across and it’s semi balanced. It also makes it almost impossible for East West to enter the auction. Look at the difference after a 1♣ opening. West can overcall 1♠ (which I definitely would despite only 9 points – it takes up space and indicates a good lead). Now the auction is likely to continue Pass 2S back to South which makes it much harder to now find a heart fit. What’s more even if North South do find 4♥, East West might now bid 4♠ as a sacrifice for -500 instead of -620/-650.
However there are arguments against the 2NT opener as well. It has 6 good clubs and you could easily miss a 6♣ contract by opening 2NT. It also contains a lot of aces which are controlling cards that tend to be very good for suit play. Even though it’s got 20 high card points it’s a lot more powerful than that (in the traditional point count aces tend to be undervalued at 4 points – while jacks are overvalued at 1 point).
Why should South super-accept? Basically he should consider some possible hands opposite now partner is known to have 5+ hearts. Even opposite as little as ♥Kxxxx or ♥Qxxxxx and nothing else there will still be good play for 10 tricks (expecting to lose a spade, a heart and a diamond). But if you bid 3♥ partner is quite likely to pass with those hands and you’ll miss a good vulnerable game.
There are assorted super accept methods played over 1NT. Over 2NT there is obviously less room but there are still plenty of options over major suit transfers. The simplest of course is just to jump to game. But you can ascribe meanings to other bids as well.
I play a method (which admittedly hardly ever comes up!) where bidding 3♠ over a 3♦ transfer to hearts shows 52xx and bidding 3NT over a 3♥ transfer to spades shows 25xx. The idea is to be able to find a 5-3 fit in the OTHER major when opener has a 5 card major and the transferor is 35xx or 53xx.
Another method I’ve seen played is step responses which say how many trumps opener has (complete the transfer shows 2, next step shows 3, etc).
Typically bids of 4 minor over a major suit transfer are super accepts with a cue bid in the minor.
If you do play some other bids to show a super accept it’s then necessary to agree if you play “re-transfers” to ensure the strong hand is declarer.
Why did I ruff with ♥8 in our defence knowing declarer also had no clubs left? I was conscious I had already ruffed once from a 3 card trump holding so that meant partner had probably started with 2 and at this point our trumps were 2-2. If partner had ♥Kx it didn’t matter as we would still have a trump trick whatever I did but if she had ♥J10 my ♥8 might force declarer’s ♥K (♥9 was visible in dummy to me at our table) and promote a trump trick back for us (we’d now have ♥Q opposite ♥J10). This which would originally have been a natural trick but no longer was once I had ruffed ♣K.
Julian Foster (many times NSW representative) ♣♦♥♠
