Imp Pairs at Bridge Base Online If you have an hour to spare, compete in one of the tournaments at Bridge Base Online. You will play 12 boards and can win American Contract Bridge League masterpoints. In many of them a human plays North or South at a table with three robots, as the computer programs are called. Since the robots bid and play very quickly, the pace is manageable. And if the human's robot partner becomes the declarer, the human takes over the reins. The diagramed deal was the final one in an Imp Pairs last Sunday. The declarer was Mike Hess of Wilton, Conn. West led the heart queen. Not that this choice was bad, but the robots can be imaginative leaders. When that held the trick, West continued with the heart jack, and East overtook with the king. How did South continue? In the auction North bid three clubs, Stayman, which asked for a four-card major. Most experts would not have done this with 4-3-3-3 distribution. Also, remember that if you use Stayman and do not find a 4-4 major-suit fit, you have given extra information to the defenders about declarer's hand. South had eight top tricks: three spades, one heart, three diamonds and one club. At first glance, declarer seemed to need a 3-3 break in either spades or diamonds to provide the ninth winner. At every other table, the declarers looked no further, immediately cashing their top spades and diamonds. When neither suit split favorably, they had to go down one. Hess realized that it could not cost to take the second trick with his heart ace and return his last heart. Now East cashed his fourth heart, which squeezed West in three suits. When West discarded a diamond, South took four tricks in that suit and nine in all (and could have won ten by squeezing West again). Note, though, that if East had shifted to a low club at Trick 4, declarer could have ducked, planning to cash the club ace before trying spades and diamonds. Here, that would have worked nicely. The gain on this board moved Hess into first place.