Play Hard, Play Well:  Thinking Can Hurt
–Robert S. Todd

One of the advantages of playing bracketed KO’s vs. Pairs is that you get more flexibility in the time that you take to play a hand.  If you play the easy ones quickly (by drawing trumps and claiming) you will leave yourself a lot of time for playing the difficult hands that you encounter. 

 
Playing in a bracketed KO at the Atlanta Regional I faced an interesting play problem.  Fortunately, I had a lot of time to play the hand.  Unfortunately, all the thought I put into it didn’t help us win any IMPs…

Dealer: East                              ♠ 9

Vul. Vs NV                              ♥ 10xx

IMPs                                        ♦  Jxxx

♣ AQ108x

♠ AJ7xxx

                                                ♥ K

♦ AKQ

♣ 9xx

The Auction was direct and to the point.

RHO preempts 3♥.  You make a very reasonable 3♠ overcall.  LHO wields the axe and you are left to play there --  (3♥) 3♠ (X) AP.

The lead was the ♥A.  And a ♥ was continued.  Plan your play!

I began my thoughts as I usually do when playing a doubled contract:  I see if there is any way I can count enough tricks to make my contract.  Things don’t look simple, but there seems to be some chances as well.  If I can get a heart ruff in hand, 6 minor suit winners, and the spade A and J then I will be home with 9 tricks.

From the speed with which LHO doubled my 3♠ bid it seemed clear they had at least a 5c♠ suit behind me (hopefully not all 6 Spades.)   So decided that I would play a small spade towards the 9 to get rid of the preemptors trump - it would be a disaster if RHO got to ruff one of my minor suit winners with their singleton trump.

1:  ♥A x x K       (-1)

2:  ♥x ♥x ♥J ♠x  (+1)

3:  ♠x 10 9 x       (-2)

LHO now returned a ♣…

The key question now became, how to play the minor suits to get 6 tricks.  There seem to be two reasonable options to consider…

• Play to get three ♦ tricks and play LHO to have both the ♣K and ♣J or
• Play LHO (the one with trumps) to have 4c♦ and then we only need the ♣K onside.

(there are some other options to consider, but they are a bit to technical to discuss here…)

I took my time to make this decision.  I figured LHO had 5-2 in the majors and RHO had 1-7 in the majors.  I went through many possible minor suit distributions and many possible high card holdings and came to my decision (the second line of play.)

4:  ♣x Q x x   (+2)   

First, hurdle down - the ♣K was onside. 

5:  ♦x x A x    (+3)

6:  ♦K x x x    (+4)

Now came the moment of truth…

7:  ♦Q x x x    (+6)

Ug, ♦ were 3-3.  But there was still a chance that the other line would have failed as well.  Unfortunately, both the ♣K and ♣J were onside.  The result was down one.

The complete hand was

                                                ♠ 9

                                                ♥ 10xx

                                                ♦ Jxxx

♣ AQ108x

♠ KQ108x                                                       ♠ x

♥ Ax                                                                ♥ QJxxxx

♦ xxx                                                                ♦ xxx

♣ KJx                                                              ♣ xx 

♠ AJ7xxx
            ♥ K
            ♦ AKQ
            ♣ 9xx

Unfortunately, at the other table, the bidding went the same way and after very little thought declarer ran the ♣9 and took his 3♣ tricks and 3♦ tricks.

3♠x =  -730 at one table and 3♠x-1 -200 at the other table makes for -930 and -14 IMPs. Ug.
Sometimes thinking too much can really hurt!