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A Two- Sided Threat.

You can sometimes exert great pressure on a declarer by simply playing your cards in the prescribed manner, nothing flash but doing what the textbook says. What would you say as West would be your chances of defeating the following 3NT contract?

 

1NT showed 12-14 and 2 was Stayman. 2 denied a major suit which caused North to jump to game in no-trumps.

As West, you lead 4, fourth highest of your longest and strongest. Declarer calls for 8 from dummy and you get a pleasant surprise when your partner takes the trick with their K. They continue playing 6 and South contributes 9. Do you win this trick and if so what do you play next? Are you going to beat this contract?

Let’s answer the second question first. Chances seem slim. The one thing that you know for sure is that your partner does not hold the Q. Why? They would have played it at trick 1 , not K. Since South did not play the Q on the second round, we know South has a hold in hearts.

Which suit do you think declarer will attack when they win the lead? The answer, of course, is clubs and the chances of making your Q look slim. (Declarer would rather take a club finesse than risk you gaining the lead with Q). Also, you know any spade finesse South would like to take will work. Only diamonds seems to have any chance of your regaining the lead if you win A and then play a third round of hearts.

If you did that, from declarer’s point of view, you will be “public enemy number 1” for South as they know there is a good chance you hold two more winning hearts. They will take the club finesse because they know your partner has no more hearts.

So, do what the textbook says and duck the second round of hearts. It might on some days cost you an extra overtrick but is your only realistic chance to beat the contract. Look what happened when West ducked the second round of hearts:

 

If you were “public enemy number 1”, then your partner became just as much a threat. South could not afford to lose the lead to either defender. They played a club to the ace and then cashed the K but got no good news. Next came Q, not covered and a spade to the 10 followed by a third spade. South was stuck in their hand. They could cash AK for 8 tricks but then had to concede the last four tricks with West having winning hearts/ Q and East winning diamonds.

Certainly, the contract could be made either by South finessing in clubs or by winning A on the first round and then playing three rounds of spades via a successful spade finesse. They would then have the K to return to dummy to cash the 13^th spade and with two top diamonds, 9 tricks. South hoped the Q would fall in two rounds: no joy. They would never had taken that line had you won the second round of hearts and continued the suit.

Follow the text-book

 

Nothing flash. By ducking, you just knew South would be nervous about where the Q was….and after all, it is the text-book play. The text-book was the winner.

On the above bidding, you, West, knew that your partner held a third heart as South’s 2 denied a 4-card heart suit. Even without that knowledge, ducking in such a situation offers the best chance for the defence.

Richard Solomon

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