Neat Hand from St. Louis

I went over for one day, to play in the Silodor with a pickup partner. Quite typical partnership desk results. But, there were quite a few gems. My favorite:

Scoring: MP

Something like this, anyway. Not sure about the non-relevant pips -- just made some up. Anyway, the auction was P-P-P-2NT-P-3NT-P-P-P.

Opening lead -- a small spade, perhaps the 6. Small from dummy, spade King, won in hand. Now what?

This is not all that "tricky" a problem, but I loved it for the art rather than the science. It seems that the only real question is how to tackle clubs. The obvious line is a simple finesse, after cashing the King for a peek and possible change of tack. However, the opponents' silence seemed odd at these colors.

So, I checked their convention card and noticed something curious. They played 2NT as asking for a feature when vulnerable and as Ogust when NV. This seemed consistent with a rather aggressive preempting style, one that resulted in a two-way approach to this 2NT call, not often discussed to this degree. (I actually had a card marked with 4-way 2NT responses myself once.)

As RHO had not opened 1♠, a call that would probably be made with five spades to the King, it seemed that LHO held five or six to the Jack. RHO might even be expected, with this general style, to open 1♥ with 4-4 in the majors, or with four good hearts (KQxx, perhaps).

This fit with LHO's picture, also. If he held 5-6 spades, he might also open 2♠ at these colors. And yet, he seems to have 5-6 spades. That lead suggested that he held an expected entry (probably heart King from RHO's not opening 1♥).

So, with Jxxxx(x) in spades, plus the heart King, why not open 2♠? He must be relatively flat, assuredly 5332 or 6322. Even then, he'd open 2♠, unless his partner (the older of the two gentlemen) would get angry if he lacked "6-11 HCP's." K(3)+J(1) leaves no room for another Q(2) in his hand.

All of this suggested, to me at least, that the Queen of clubs had to be in RHO's hand. So, I crossed to dummy and reversed finessed clubs, catching 10x to the left and Qxx to the right.

There are several morals to this deal, perhaps. First, if the opponents ask the right questions as to your style and agreements, you may be giving away information even by mere "systemic passes" that you might not expect, let alone from bidding. Second, if you do not ask the right questions as to the opponents' style and agreements, you might miss a lot of opportunities. Third, even if a lead does not give away a trick in the suit chosen, it might give away a trick elsewhere, in a strange manner of speaking.

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