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Saving Partner.

Looking at the bidding below and at dummy, your first and second reaction might be why your partner is not playing this deal in 3NT. No such joy. They seemed to be looking for slam! They have left you to play a rather precarious 4S contract.

 

At least our partner gave up on slam when they saw our 4 bid. 4 is high enough! West’s 3 is a weak jump. They led 10 and dummy’s J won the first trick. Plan the play.

Fortunately, we are playing Teams because it would be almost impossible to outscore those in the far superior, far more comfortable 3NT spot. Making 10 tricks would be great and we can then tell our partner to be less ambitious next time.

Firstly, though, we have to make 10 tricks. One of our problems, that in diamonds, has been solved by the opening lead. The diamond situation seems very clear with East the strong favourite to hold an initial Q763.

Our South did nothing particularly wrong though they were not right either. Were they unlucky (certainly) or should they have taken a different line?

Being rather conveniently in dummy after trick 1, they played T and when East played low, they did the same, allowing West’s Q to score trick 2. Then, the roof fell in!

 

West switched to a low club. South had no problem in finessing but East had no problem in ruffing, either! Next came a diamond ruff with a second club ruff securing the fate of the contract. Down 1 with South able to set up diamonds to discard their second heart, which was not a loser anyway!

Losing 4 trump tricks was unlucky. On a good day, West would have had a 6-card club suit and the contract would have made, even maybe with an overtrick.

South knew the diamond lay-out if only because when a pre-emptor does not lead their own suit, they are very likely to be looking for a ruff. To that extent, finessing into the West hand was safe. However, the bad club break was also quite likely and with it the loss of 4 trump tricks.

While occasionally a player will lead a side- suit singleton with a singleton trump, their diamond lead would normally say they had more than one spade.
Also, if East held KQ2, they are likely to have covered your 10 hoping they can win the second round and that each defender did have 3 spades.

All of this points to South playing A on 10 and exiting a small spade.

This line will work when either spades are 3-3 (they cannot lose more than 3 spade tricks including one through ruffing) since the potential heart loser can be discarded on the long diamonds, or when spades break 4-2 and the heart finesse works, as above.

With West’s club pips being so poor for a jump overcall, the chances of them having all 7 missing clubs increases. Note that had West led a low club at trick 1, and East returned a diamond, it would be obvious to lay down A and then play a second spade. The situation which actually occurred is very similar.
 

Survived!

A warning then to North to be more realistic with their slam aspirations next time and settle for the comfort of 3NT but perhaps a warning for South too that sometimes the textbook play is not the best practical play for their game to succeed.

Tomorrow, we will look at another declarer with a different kind of trump problem.

 

Richard Solomon

 

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