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and another Jack!

A Tale of Two Jacks.

There is one jack which all the East players on today's board would like their partners to hold and another jack which one pair wish was nowhere near the table during the bidding of this board.

Firstly, then, to the problem:

 

1 is at least a 5-card suit while 3, Bergen style, shows 0-5, maybe a bad 6 hcp with 4 spades. The game is Pairs.

I posed this to the Panel even though I did not think it was much of a problem. Indeed, their answers ranged from the short:

Matt Brown “Double: I'm not going to elaborate!”   or:

Michael Cornell “Double: can’t even think of another bid!”

His namesake can, maybe:

Michael Ware “Double: but some days might try 3NT at matchpoints :-)”

Was this such a day? We had the suspicious…

Kris Wooles “Double: Not sure what else I’m supposed to do in the real world. Always suspicious given it has been posed as a question to a problem solvers panel.”  And with hearts on their minds:

Nigel Kearney “Double: I will pass 4 and raise 4/. If partner has four hearts and a four card minor, we'd probably prefer to play in the minor but can't cater to that without giving up on 4 when partner has five of them.”

Bruce Anderson “Double: passing is not an option and neither is 3NT, which would show a spade stop and a long solid minor, and 4NT for the minors bypasses hearts. Partner may only have 4 hearts and we go down in that contract, but he/she could have 5 or 6 hearts and a minor suit card;  then 4 is a likely make.”

Peter Newell “Double: While it would be nice to have 4 hearts, double doesn’t guarantee 4 hearts. I have plenty of values and short spades.  Bidding 4 on a 5 card suit when I have support for + is silly.  If I had to bid anything other than double then 3NT would be it, as South is likely to have and underlead the A at trick 1. If one can score the K at trick 1 then 3NT does have some appeal as it is the most likely game to make and it is Pairs. However, even if I score the K, unless partner has the Q, we are likely a long way from 9 tricks and may go down a heap.”

And more no trump thoughts:

Stephen Blackstock “Double: The obvious bid and surely best. 3NT might be a triumph if South underleads the A and West has Qxx; but will be less successful if North has the A, if South has AQJTx and can’t see any reason not to lead from the top, or if N/S set up spades at trick one and you don’t have eight more quick runners (of which there is little sign from East’s hand). 3NT won’t get you to 6m either…….

Julie Atkinson “Double: take-out. Happy with whatever partner bids. Not expecting anything in partner’s hand, but then I don’t need much at all.”

So, a few longing looks at 3NT but otherwise the Panel are united. Holding 21hcp with opener having say 11hcp, that still left the possibility of several honour points elsewhere. For once, 3NT was not the best option and not for the reason you might think. It is time to introduce our first “jack”:

Such an innocent looking face: Jack James. He held the South hand on the deal above and in case you think we are printing the four wrong hands, we are not!

 

Now, maybe we should pose you as to what West would do when East made their take-out double? No problems there. Pass!

West may well err and lead the top trump thus presenting our Jack with his one and only trick. That would  be down 8 or – 2000. Had the whole room bid the grand in no-trumps (-2220), that would have been a complete top for our Jack here (and a disbelieving partner, Anne-Marie Russell) but, of course, they did not because the “other jack” was a little troublesome. The difference between 8 down and 9 down in 3x (-2300) would still have been significant with some pairs bidding to 7NT.

The board occurred during the recent National Pairs. Only 4 of the 14 pairs bid to grand while 9 played in 6NT….and then there was…

At the table, East bid 4 and West who could count spades and knew something was up jumped to 6, though that still earned “Jack J” all the match-points.

Maybe Jack was the only player to have any fun with those South cards.

The other “troublesome jack” reared itself at other tables.

where are you?

East knew they did not hold this card but who did? Imagine a more standard sequence like:

 

West              North            East                South

                                                                   Pass   (“no imagination”)

 1                   Pass             2                   Pass

 2                   Pass             3                   Pass

 3                   Pass            4NT                  Pass

5 ¹                 Pass                ?

 

¹ 2 key cards and Q

 

If West does not have J, then counting anywhere close to 13 tricks would be problematic. Does it become a complete guess as West need not even have Q let alone J. Maybe a jump to 4 over 3 shows a better, longer or at least self-supporting suit. That would give East the confidence to bid 7NT, especially if West held a 7-card suit. That Q would then be unnecessary.   

 

So, we could have had a most unusual and highly significant lead problem to 3x. As is so often the case, “crime” did pay when one Jack found a most unlikely opening bid on the most unbiddable hand ever while the lack of certainty over another jack caused many to stay safely but unspectacularly in 6NT.

 

And from “Jack’s” to “Jan’s” Day

 but we have to wonder whether Jack James might have been around back in 1985 when the following hand appeared. We will pose it to you as a lead not a bidding problem:

 

2 was what you think it is (strong!) while 4 was Gerber. The double? No comment! Your lead is?

Richard Solomon

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