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Every Dog has its Day…but was this it?

The answer to the above question maybe “no”, but maybe “yes”! Maybe!  This deal centres around a Michaels Cue-Bid and whether you are prepared to take what could be a cheap sacrifice, but the worth of the sacrifice would depend on whether the opposition could make their game.

You are their opposition and you have to make 4 for a good result.

 

If the opposition are going to disrupt your side’s constructive bidding, then it’s a good idea to have decent length in the spade suit. That was certainly the case here when East’s 2NT showed a reasonable hand (10+hcp) with at least five hearts and at least five diamonds.

South may or may not have had enough high-card strength to bid 3 but they did. North may or may not have had enough high-card strength to bid 4 but they did!

All South had to do was to make 10 tricks, or avoid 4 losers! West led 10. Plan the play. East holds K and trumps break as favourably as they can.

Ideally, when you make a Michaels Cue Bid, you would like your side to be declaring. When defending, you tell the opponents too much about the shape of yours and by inference, your partner’s hand. Thus, it can be useful for a Michaels' bidder to have value and most of that value should be in their long suits. Look what can happen when it is not:

 

Facing a possible loser in every suit, and two in diamonds, South started with A since the chances of East having all three missing spades were slim. If the missing spade honour was with West, South would soon be writing down a minus score, but it was not. Suddenly, the four outside losers started reducing.

In a dire position, East chose to cash A and exit with a second heart. That took care of one of South’s diamond losers. All that remained was for South to guess whether East’s remaining black card (if they had one) was a club honour (cash the A first) or not. With the double club finesse being correct four times out of six (the number of missing club cards) along with the possibility of East being 5-6 in the red suits, South elected to play a trump to hand and play a low club to the 9. Back to South and West prevented the over-trick by covering the second round of clubs. Nevertheless, making 10 tricks proved to be a very good result for North-South.

It did not matter if East exited with either minor suit. South’s losers would start reducing very quickly to just two in the red suits. Even an initial heart lead from West does not help the defence as declarer ruffs the second round of hearts and plays trumps as above. Perhaps, the sneaky lead of a low club from West might challenge the declarer though a desperate South might call West’s bluff by playing low intending to take a second club finesse later.

All up, knowing East’s distribution was extremely helpful to South in their quest for 10 tricks.

So, as West, would you perhaps take a little insurance against 4 making by bidding to the five-level in their 10-card fit? The vulnerability was in East-West’s favour. Had East’s minor been clubs, it would certainly have been right to bid on. As it was, West can escape for just down 1 in 5. There should be no wrong guess if North starts off with a small diamond while after the more likely A, North needs to win A on the first round of the suit or else there would even be a chance of 5 making. The best chance the defence has for more than 3 tricks is a high club followed by a low diamond.

The above analysis presumes that West will take a winning heart finesse. No guarantees of success but North did open the bidding.

     Is cheap insurance worthwhile?

So, to the extent that a cheap sacrifice is available following the Michaels' bid, the 2 bid was worthwhile. Yet, South’s game was so close to being defeated. Sacrifices are great: phantom ones less so!

Stranger than fiction?

I do not dream up hands in this column. I do not need to. What happens at the table is weird, challenging enough, to provide plenty of material. So, look at the following short, sharp and fairly uncomfortable sequence and decide what you will do next. You are playing Teams and everyone is vulnerable.

 

So, you need all suits held when you bid 3NT?

 If you answer “yes”, then what would you prefer initially?

What now?

Double?

What does "double" mean?

Is your partner still at the table? They have been very silent up to this point.

What is the best result your side can achieve? 

Can you wait until Monday for the answers and to find out what happened?

Richard Solomon

 

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