Weekly Hand Analysis - Mark Olsky - June 12, 2023 - NT

Question:  North opens with 1NT and South does not have Stayman or a major for a transfer.  South does have clubs available for a transfer but does not know how to make a bid to North to have North transfer to clubs.  South then bids 2NT, for lack of a bid, and North answers with 3NT.  As you can see 3NT became the bid for everyone playing this hand.  The Double Dummy shows NT was not the best bid.  If 3NT is not the bid how would N/S get to 4 clubs or 5 diamonds?

Mark:

This is a good example of why it is a mistake to pay too much attention to the double dummy "analysis." It is no analysis at all, just an exercise in 20-20 hindsight. Imagine a program that "analyzes" your play at blackjack, but the program always knows what the next card at the top of the deck is. If you are dealt a pair of 10s and stand pat instead of hitting the next card which happens to be an ace and, of course, the computer knew that and it tells you you SHOULD have taken the hit, because it just happens the dealer had a 7 up and a 3 underneath, which the computer also knew. How could you make such a silly mistake, turning a sure win into a sure loss?

 If you look upon the result of this hand as a lesson as to what you should do in the future, you'll have the very occasional great result to go along with lots and lots of losses. Looking at just the 26 cards in the N-S hand, what contract would you want to be in to have the greatest percentage of great results and the lowest percentage of bad ones? It is 3NT! Why? Half the time the hand with all the good spades isn't the one on lead. Any lead other than a spade practically guarantees that 3NT will be made with overtricks. Even if the opening leader has a hand that makes a spade lead likely, half the time the spade Ace is to the left of the KQ3 and again 3NT makes with overtricks. This means that even if everything else is stacked against 3NT, at a very minimum 3NT is a big winner 75% of the time and everything else, including 5 diamonds making, is a big loser 75% of the time. Of course, it's no fun to be in exactly the right contract and be punished for it, but it's good bridge to be in the highest probability best contract. At the end of most days, you come out a winner. Let me point out a couple more things. Even when everything is stacked against 3NT as in this hand, the defense often slips up, even when the defenders are experts. Note that 3NT was made half the time, so even there, had there been any minor suit bidders (thankfully not) they would not have gotten the meager rewards they aspired to. They'd still be below average for this board. Note too that the "par" result of 5 diamonds making 5 without benefit of a peek at the E-W cards will only make half the time. guessing the relative positions of the heart A and Q is a 50-50 proposition. Get it wrong and you take only 10 tricks.

  Kudos and condolences to all N-S pairs getting to 3NT and going down. E-W pairs that allowed it to make (given that it was always played by North) should examine what went wrong and hopefully learn for next time. My guess is that they led the spade Ace rather than any other spade. Nearly all experts would lead the J or 10, depending on their lead conventions. Even a small one works in this case, since partner has the 9. No need to push your luck that far.