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JUST ANOTHER DEFENSIVE DECISION….

You’ve got the bidding, your hand and dummy to look at. You’ve even seen the play to the first three tricks. It can’t be too hard…can it? You are North.

  2 is a transfer to hearts. 

So, you lead the 10 which goes round to declarer’s jack. At trick 2, declarer leads the 2 to your 3, dummy’s 6 and your partner’s queen. Partner plays back the J won by declarer’s ace. Next comes the A… and you?

So, what do you know? It does not seem you made a brilliant lead but leading a singleton of partner’s bid suit to a game contract can never be classified as a criminal act! Declarer could have played the A at trick 2 but did not. What’s going on?

Take the trump suit. At trick one, you can see every trump except the AQ2 with two of those disappearing on the first round. If West had the A, surely he would have played it first or at least not ducked a trump in that fashion? Thus, it seems like 1NT was bid with a singleton heart. Let’s take stock. If that is true, then we have two certain trump tricks with very good prospects of a third. Can partner who did open the bidding provide one more trick? If partner held the K, it is rather too late. Firstly, their play of the J seems unusual though maybe an attempt at fooling declarer. Then, if you ruff, it may save you losing your diamond trick but at the cost of your trump trick (loser on loser play as the diamond disappears). So, ruffing may not be great but really, why ruff anyway if the K is with West? What, then, to discard? I hope you chose a club as that is the surest way to defeat the contract. Time to reveal all!

 

 

 

Yes, West was rather keen for you to ruff. They would over-ruff and play another low heart off dummy. Then, next time trumps were played, the J would fall under the king and there would still be a trump in dummy to regain the lead after A is knocked out.

If you discard a diamond, and West plays for a 4-2 as opposed to a 3-3 trump break, you should survive as in order to shorten dummy’s trumps, he will need to ruff diamonds or spades, as well as knocking out the A. At some point, you should be able to discard a club to stop communications back to the West hand. If declarer plays for trumps 3-3, they will certainly fail. (Yet, surely South would duck the second trump if they had a smaller one?)However, the big “no-no” is for you to ruff lazily in front of dummy.

No-one made 4 and most West players were left wishing they had passed 1 in tempo and to see whether their partner would be obliging enough to re-open with a double. That action may not always work though for East-West, it was, this time, a case of defending successfully or, apart from one lone 3NT making, failing in game.  

Richard Solomon

 

 

 

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