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“Don’t put all your eggs in just one basket”.

Options…keeping them open for as long as you can. If you do not succeed at first, then perhaps you can try again. Once you commit down one road, it may be impossible to turn back and try another. Enough mixed metaphors. Just one bridge problem!

                                                                  Dbl           All Pass

Yours is not to reason why…but after not considering their hand worthy of an overcall, North jumped to game after their partner bid 1. With three aces and a partner in the bidding, you double this game.

You might think about leading a trump but there that option ended. So, you started with A and were greeted with some ominous clubs in dummy. The first round went 4, 10 from your partner and J from declarer. What now?

Looking at that dummy, you might reflect that if North had overcalled 1, then your partner would have had the chance to lead something sensible through South, of far greater benefit to your side than the A which you selected.

So, you need three more tricks (at least!) and can, you trust, see two more in your own hand.

What happened

West hatched a plan, not an unreasonable plan, but one which backfired at a very early stage and from that point, there was no recovery. All partner needed was the K. They had 6+ hcp with their first bid (or 5+ maybe) and had bid diamonds.

So, lead a low diamond to their king and they will switch to hearts, the obvious switch, to give your side 4 quick tricks before those clubs in dummy could be used for discards. Plan decided and low diamond led to your partner’s jack and declarer’s king.

“Sorry, inadvertent play” claimed West. “I did not mean to play that card.” Unfortunately, no such rule exists during the play and play proceeded rather well for declarer:

Trumps were drawn to be followed by two high clubs to dispose of two hearts. The defence were left with just a diamond, a heart, the A and a non-too-impressive -790. You can see that West could have done three tricks better, +800.

That may be seeing through the back of the cards but +500 should have been the result if West had kept their options open. Their plan was good but unless South had just one diamond and East had seven diamonds, there was no need to lead a low diamond. Continue with A and if East has the K, they should encourage. East should realise that you do not hold K if you lead the ace as it would be unusual to the lead A when you did not have the king if you held AK as well.

So, on the deal above, East should play 7 (high discourage). There’s still one more chance for West, that of leading the A. A similar scenario will occur though this time East can play 3 (low encourage).

Very soon, the defence will have three heart tricks and the contract will be defeated. Not the +800 you could have got by starting on hearts and East switching to the Q but not the embarrassing -790 either.

That 10

Help at hand

East may have just held QJxxx and both major suit jacks. If that were the case, you were not going to beat the contract…or at least not by cashing your aces. There was another possibility. Trick one saw both the 10 and J appear but neither small club. Someone, East or South, is not telling the truth. One, maybe both, has a lower club.

It could be that South had Jxx and played the J  to put you off the scent of giving your partner a club ruff. After all, a club ruff was one major reason for leading the A. So, an alternative line at trick 2 would be a second club, probably a highish one suggesting a heart return (the higher of the unplayed suits) after the ruff. There was no ruff for East but even though two hearts disappear on the high clubs, the contract still fails as the defence can take two diamonds and one heart to go with A.

However, there was another possibility, the actual reason for the 10. Your partner was trying to help you!  When a singleton appears on the table, we are used to giving a suit preference signal to indicate to which suit you should switch. The actual club holding may offer similar opportunities to suggest a switch. The 10 was a very good signal to suggest a heart switch. If only West had followed that suggestion.

So, help was at hand but even if that was not recognised, the concept of keeping options open would have worked better than “putting all those eggs into just one basket.” They all broke.

We will stick to defending for tomorrow:

(1 is 5+ hearts: 3NT shows traditionally 19hcp)

On lead to 3NT, you finger a diamond but eventually decide on 9, a kind of interior sequence style lead hoping to find some spades in your partner’s hand, too. The first trick goes 4, 3 (low encourage) from partner and J from declarer.

South plays 4 rounds of clubs (South held KQJ, with everyone following to three rounds. On the fourth round, your partner throws T (low encourage) and declarer 4 and you?

See you tomorrow.

Richard Solomon

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