in this hand, the contract is down 2, only if North attacks clubs. On my table, the attack was diamonds. It is still down 1, because I returned a spade after casting the diamonds.
On the other table, the player cashed the ace in clubs and returns a club. Then Lia played nonsense and went down 2 by cashing am trumps and trying a finesse in hearts.
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I'm currently trying to post from my Pixel tablet, an Android device. This requires to create hand diagrams from IntoBridge hands. One cannot use screenshots because the bidding is never visible completely. On Windows, I use my Java Program "Bridge Hand Creator and Analyzer". That is not available on Android. So, I wrote a small App for Android which does the trick. It reads the board from the clipboard. The diagram is a screenshot from this app. Everything seems to work.
Above is just a random hand against the expert. It went down on my table, but not on his. There, it was made doubled. The only lead that beats it is a diamond. Mine was the ♦K.
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As the hand stands, the contract cannot be beaten if played by North, only kept to 9 tricks. East can can attack whatever spade he might. The suit is blocked, and only East has the entry in hearts.
It happens at the table that East attacked a small spade, then took the spade return, cashed the third spade and returned a small heart in the hope to find ♥K at West. Instead, West puts in the ♥Q which is covered by the ♥K. Now, N/S have a squeeze against East in diamonds and hearts and make one more trick in the end.
This kind of result happens often on IntoBridge. I'm a bit unsure who actually made a mistake and if it is a mistake at all. Lia on my place would bid 2♦ and still and end 4NT after the following auction.
What does the expert reader think about this hand?
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There is a recent investigation on the topic in the title. The short summary was:
No singleton, play NT.
They say it is usually better to play in NT with 50% more chance to win. I applied it in the case above, and it did work. No idea how reasonable that is on the long run.
So, here is a counterexample to warn you. Especially, 4-4 fits are vulnerable to the application of the mentioned rule. They do not provide 5 quick tricks. Moreover, the rule was tested for hands with combined 25-29 high card points. In the case above, the missing stopper in hearts adds to the problem.
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This is Acol bidding. But 4♠ was the contract in every system on IntoBridge. However, one player played it better than all others, including me.
East might lead the ♣K which you take. Drawing two rounds of trumps exhibits the problem. You lose at least 3 tricks, and most likely one in diamond. Now you should wake up. It is really not difficult to see the one winning option. Just eliminate the hearts and exit in clubs. If West cannot ruff one of your hearts, you have chances to make the contract. In this case, East has to take the club trick and must play into the double void or from the ♦K.
I don't know exactly how high the chances are that this exit works, but it is better than not trying anything. It is surely better than hoping for the blank ♦K or a sleepy East who doesn't cover the ♦Q.
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The hand above is interesting. I won it making 4NT+1. The bidding is Acol, and you may wonder why we did not play in spades. In Acol, however, repeating the spades is only explained as 5-7 spades. I don't want to play in a 5-2 fit if we have values in all other suits. The spades might deliver tricks in NT, but they will not deliver extra ruffs in dummy. By double dummy analysis, 11 tricks can be made in spades and in NT.
Lia tells me that it would bid 3NT instead of 3♥, which ends the bidding. I am not sure if a human player on North would not go into 4♠ with this unbalanced hand.
The longer you look at that hand, the less likely is a slam. And the bidding above discourages the slam too. If you are brave, you can try a quantitative 4NT, which North will pass. Yet, many players plaid 6NT or 6♠ going down one to three times.
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I have a few hands from today's "Play against the Celebrity" on IntoBridge. I like that format a lot. I beat them often, but I have also lost all five boards one time. Playing on a computer against robots let all sorts of terrible mistakes slip through. On average, I play even.
In the hand above, I decided to pass the redouble. It was marked as a penalty redouble. So why not wait for E/W to throw themselves into the knife? Surprisingly, I was allowed to play 2♣XX. I made it barely. But so does 4♠ which was played on all other tables, and which count less. The redouble seems to be an Acol thing on IntoBridge. I would never consider passing in Teams. It is too dangerous.
This one I lost because of greedy and foolish play. I could have ended 3NT-1 easily like the celebrity, but decided to try to make it in the last but one trick. Instead of cashing my trick for one down, I hoped for the best, which did not arrive. The hand can even be made after a spade lead if the diamonds are guessed correctly. West cannot prevent access to the fifth diamond trick.
I am bringing this hand up because it shows how difficult 3NT can be, in spite of 25 high card points, or 26 distributional points. The contract even is down after a heart lead. I do not blame anybody who passes a weak 1NT with 11 points. An extreme example of 3NT would be if your side has AK in all suits. You have 28 high card points, but only 8 top tricks. You will get another one in suit very likely. But take away one K and the contract is already in severe danger.
The point of this hand is that 6NT can be made and 6♥ cannot. In 6NT, you can cross to South via the ♥J after cashing the ♣A and get 12 tricks. In hearts, this does not work, because the clubs are ruffed by East.
That of course is pure luck. In teams, I would consider it foolish to play in NT instead of hearts. But such is Bridge.
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