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Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

All you need is one finesse to work and then you can claim your 9 tricks and move on (maybe with an overtrick on a good day!). Both opponents are in the bidding. Both could have the missing king. You know the feeling?

 

 

Some aggressive bidding around the table, especially by the player who has just tabled dummy, saw you, South, owning up to a club hold and finishing in 3NT.

West leads theK and you cannot yet count to 9 tricks. Plan the play. East contributes 9 at trick one (low encourage).

 It would be very straightforward if you could duck the opening lead knowing that West would continue clubs. You would have 9 very comfortable tricks even if the diamond finesse failed. Yet, East’s 9 looks very much like a player who does not have the J (yes, you know that and now it seems that West knows that, too!). They are very unlikely to continue clubs or indeed may not switch to hearts because they can see an immediate suit of interest to declarer, diamonds, whether or not West is looking at the king. The defence may well need their five tricks in a bit of a hurry.

So, a duck might produce a spade switch, no matter whether they hold 0,1 or 2 of the top honours. Assuming East has a top spade,next would come a second club which South would need to win with their ace as they would otherwise be looking at four black suit losers…. and be relying on the diamond finesse.

If declarer does win the first trick, they will be relying on the diamond finesse to work as the defence could surely unravel their four black suit winners quite quickly.

Thus, duck and await. Maybe West will find a heart switch. That will not give South nine tricks should the finesse fail though winning the second round of clubs with the ace and playing five more rounds of diamonds will put a lot of pressure on both defenders while South has some easy spade discards to make. The defence can still take five tricks if they discard correctly.

Meanwhile, were West to find the spade switch and East plays a second club, South will almost be home if the spade honours are split especially if East has only two clubs. It is probable that East has two out of AK and K to justify both opposition bids. Perhaps the spade played by East (A) indicated which two.

Also, remember that West was a passed hand. It was not mandatory for them to open the bidding with KQ K and a spade honour but they might.

Too hard to get right?

 

Unless East was false-carding, West held K and East could only harm you if they held K and a third club. They did but still they could not harm you!

If the finesse was to work, you could play A, lose to the K in West’s hand and still come to a 9^th trick in either black suit, depending on West’s exit. A case of one important extra chance which came from counting high-card points.

It seems there was, perhaps, a successful way through after all, better achieved by the initial duck of the K.

An easy Game?

 2 was a transfer.

You reach 4 without any trouble and receive a fairly friendly 8 lead. The contract is an easy make if spades break evenly, at worst on a heart finesse if the trump break is 3-1 but when you cash A, East discards 3, low encouraging.

Not so easy now. What to do?

Richard Solomon

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