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You wish, don’t you that the line you take for any contract is the right line, the play that ensures your contract is “cold”. You do not want always to have easy contracts, at least not if you want to do well, create swings in Teams matches. You want a little challenge, well some of the time.

Your opponents rested rather limply in 3NT on the following deal and after South led a heart, had few problems in scoring all 13 tricks. Your bidding was much better but there was the little matter of playing the slam contract:

 

You were quite happy with that sequence, one to talk about in the bar after play. 2, on the face of it natural, created a game force and when partner showed you some diamond support (3), you were off towards slam. Indeed, maybe you were too low.

Too low?  Always make your contract before you start worrying about what might have been. North had made a slightly annoying lead of the 7. Never mind, it seemed easy enough to make all the tricks by drawing trumps and running the clubs. So, off you went (maybe a phrase with a double meaning) and after winning the J with your ace, you played a diamond to the ace and felt a nasty shiver down your spine as South discarded a small heart.

At least we were not in 7! “Where there’s life, there’s hope.” What hope? You could not run the clubs as North would ruff soon enough and the defence would take their spade trick. That would not look so good when discussion came up in the bar! Especially as our friend Deal Master Pro has a string of 7’s in the spaces by both minor suits and no trumps!

We will come back to what might have been in a minute. We have to make the contract first. You may as well play a second trump to hand. The whole world, not just the defence, knows you have a trump loser!

One spade can be discarded on the third round of clubs assuming the suit breaks 3-2. It just must! What though of the other spade? The only other place to get rid of the other spade is on the A, after you have taken the heart finesse!

So, what is it to be? You have to decide now. North might have only 7 cards in the major suits (the adverse vulnerability might have kept South quiet.) and therefore 3 clubs. Suddenly, your “cold contract” looked a little less so.

So, did you get it right? Here are the four hands.

 

 

North might have held three or more clubs but this is against the odds (remember North has 3 more diamonds than East and therefore is going to be shorter in some of the other suits than South). So, did you take that heart finesse, shut your eyes and open them again to see that the king had not appeared? Play A next and then the club suit from the top and you had earned 9 imps for your team. Are all “cold” contracts this stressful?

The other clue is that so many players, and again not always for the right reason, shy away from leading away from kings against 6 of a suit. Notice how North chose to lead a spade and not a heart. Maybe North held the K. Not a big clue but any we can find in this hour of need might be useful.

Of course, there is no certainty about how to play the trump suit. There are two reasons North had not led a trump at trick 1. (So often, a “safe lead” is found against a small suit slam. While a trump lead can be right, it is not right often enough for me to recommend it.). So, many players lead trumps. Only, though, if North has the 2 small diamonds would they lead a trump. Leading a singleton trump can be disastrous.

The first reason North did not lead a trump is they were not dealt any. Yet, with a long or both major suits and no diamonds, North might just have overcalled 1. It easier to overcall on minimal values at the 1 level than in the South case at the 2 level.  The second reason for no trump lead is that they hold the trump queen.

Where trumps break 2-1, you have no worries. You might though conclude that North held the trump queen and then by starting with K, your contract would have been “cold”.

Don’t you just hate that word!

Richard Solomon

 

 

 

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