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                                Confusion Reigns.

When 11 out of 14 pairs make a major suit game (4 of these pairs were admittedly in part-score) when there are four very obvious losers, it may be worth a look as to why. This was the kind of dilemma you may have been facing in the problem we gave you yesterday. You were looking at three of those defensive winners, or was it only two?

 

 

Your partner led the9. Declarer plays low from dummy. Your king takes the first trick as declarer plays J. Which card do you play to trick 2?

Unless South has bid their hand very strangely, it is unlikely your partner has led from shortage. A “top of nothing” style lead, as West has most likely led, can be hard for their partner to read in the sense that the length of the suit is very ill-defined. When you are leading from four small cards, the standard lead is 2^nd highest so that when you follow to the second round of the suit, you play a lower card. Partner can then deduce the lead is not a doubleton and therefore must be a 4-card suit (following through the concept of MUD leads where the second card you play from three small cards is the higher one.)

That does not help East here because West could have a 5 or if you believe South’s jack as a true card, even a 6-card suit.

 Are you? Confused?

It may well not be time to test the truthfulness of that jack, with the obvious switch being to the top of your doubleton club. You rather expect partner to have a winner there but to your surprise, dummy’s jack took the trick, beating your partner’s 8.

Guess what came next? The Q of course. Is your goose well cooked now!? It might have been a little better had you won the first trick with A maybe hiding from declarer where the K was. However, there seems nothing for it now but to play A as we (which really means "declarer") knows that the opening lead would not be away from the ace...at least not in "good company"!.

Declarer follows with 7, yes another spade. The wise action now would be to grab that A and play it, hoping it would score and then hope your partner can come to the party with a trump trick. At this stage, even a second small club would have beaten the contract. Even a “I have not a clue what to do “ trump (normally a very poor reason to switch to a trump) would have beaten the contract as long as partner was awake…but another spade? That was extremely unwise.

 

South had kept one important fact hidden, that they had four clubs. Had East known that South had 6 or even 7 hearts and 4 clubs, then cashing A followed by A at tricks 2 and 3 would have been much easier.

So, too, on this hand, it would have been a lot easier had your side been leading 3rds and 5ths. They are not my favourite choice though here, the initial lead of 2 would have pinpointed the fact that West had five and South therefore two spades. Certainly, West could have held three but then declarer would have four...which barely makes sense with the the J winning the first round of that suit. It is possible that West could have helped their partner on the second round of spades. Had West followed with 8, that normally shows an odd number of the suit, traditionally 98x (maybe 98 doubleton). If that odd number is indeed five, then it is definitely time for a switch.

When in with the A, a second club would also have been a winner for the defence. You would feel sick to see the J discarded on the 10 but, partner to the rescue (we hope) as when in with the A, a third round of clubs would allow you to ruff for the fourth defensive trick.

There were many reasons to get the defence right at some point before it was too late. AK, A, A…look like four pretty good defensive tricks but one of them (we presume not the A!) never scored a trick at most tables. Declarer did their best with a pressure J played at trick 1. Cashing that A might have felt instinctively the wrong thing to do. Yet, when it appeared West did not have either top club, taking what you could see, quickly, and hoping for a trump trick from partner might have been a reasonable strategy. Playing Pairs, it might also have saved the overtrick if South's trumps were solid.

Note that had you cashed A and then switched to a second low club, declarer had to discard the AK on 10 and K to avoid being two down (club ruff). Now, that would have been a very nice bonus.

Taking four top tricks against four of a major contract can be one of the hardest things for a defence to do. The above deal illustrates why.

And two questions for tomorrow: Firstly, you are North:

 

Your double is clearly enough for take-out but do you know what partner’s double is…and what action would you take now? If it helps, you are playing Pairs.

Then:

 

You are first to speak. Would you?

See you tomorrow.

Richard Solomon

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