Thanks to Frank Anshen of East Setauket, Long Island, NY for this hand from a recent regional tournament in Atlanta, GA. In an open pair event, Anshen sat South and said hello to Michael Lawrence of Berkeley, CA, who came to the table and sat West. Lawrence is a well known professional player and writer who Anshen knew from his college days.
Anshen and his partner were playing a system that included a one no trump range that was less than the standard 15 to 17 point range, so Anshen opened the bidding on this hand with one club. After Lawrence doubled, North passed and East, a client taking a "playing lesson", bid one heart. Anshen bid two clubs and that turned out to be the final contract.
Lawrence led the king of spades, which held. He followed with the ace and then switched to the heart three. East won the ace and returned a heart to the jack. Lawrence continued with the king of hearts which was trumped by Anshen.
Anshen cashed the ace of clubs and noted the fall of the ten on his left. He remembered the rule of "restricted choice" and decided that it applied here. The rule says that when a defender plays one of two touching honors, it is more likely that the card played is a singleton than a doubleton. The reasoning is that if the player held both cards, he may have played either, but if he held only one, his choice is restricted to that card.
With this in mind, Anshen led a spade to the jack in the dummy so that he could take the club finesse. The nine of clubs lost to the jack and the diamond switch knocked out the ace. Eventually, he had to concede a diamond to the opponents for down one.
As the game progressed, Anshen thought about the hand and decided that Lawrence had deliberately left the jack of spades in the dummy so that the declarer could get there to take the losing finesse. Had Lawrence played a spade earlier, it is very likely that Anshen would have just cashed out his clubs from the top and made the contract.
After the game, he saw Lawrence and went up to him, reintroduced himself, and congratulated Lawrence on the trap. Lawrence was most cordial and denied any credit. He said that his partner was taking lessons and was unreliable when it came to signaling so he thought it best to just take the heart tricks that they had coming before any of them went away. Lawrence then explained that Anshen should not have played for "restricted choice" in this instance, anyway. Lawrence said "If I had a singleton club I would have raised my partner's heart bid. When I allowed you to play two clubs, it was probably because clubs were behaving. Of course, if my partner had bid two hearts instead of only one, we would have bought the contract and made three!"
Kudos to Lawrence for his professionalism and for his
willingness to discuss an interesting play with an opponent.
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Bernstein is
a free-lance writer in Solon.