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Carefully Does It.

Maybe only two losers in your major suit game. That sounds not too hard an ask. However, we did say "maybe". "Maybe", there could be one or two more lurking. "Carefully does it."

Whether or not you are playing 5-card majors, it seems about right to bid a quiet 2 on the above North cards after West’s overcall. That bid propelled South directly to game.

When West led the 7, it all looked pretty rosy for South. There seemed to be a club loser and a certain spade loser but with favourable breaks, that seemed about all. However, there is always an increased risk when an opponent overcalls and does not lead their own suit, especially when their suit looked rather solid.

Perhaps West’s spades above were headed by the KJ, not a holding from which they wanted to leave, or perhaps they had other reasons for leading a diamond.

Hidden danger

At one table, South was not careful enough. They decided to ruff their second small spade in dummy (a good idea) and therefore after they had taken East’s Q with their ace, they exited with A and then a small spade. West seized an opportunity by ducking the second spade to their partner and that was not to declarer’s advantage as these were the four hands.

East won the 10 and returned a diamond for West to ruff. A third round of spades was over-ruffed with the A providing the defence with their fourth trick. Not an over but an under-trick! (South's diamond loser was discarded on the K).

South was certainly correct to ruff their second spade loser in dummy though had diamonds broken 3-2, that same loser could have been discarded on the K, since the vulnerable overcall made West more likely to hold A.

South should have been aware of the possibility of a 4-1 diamond break. There was also the chance East might over-ruff dummy on the third round of spades (West’s overcall could easily be a 6-card suit.)

These dangers meant that the hand should be played much more carefully than the above declarer did.

Were A with East

At the very least, lead your club at trick 2. Were East to win the ace and give West a diamond ruff, that would be against the odds… and you would not be down yet. In fact, West would win the club and continue with K. You could choose to win that, play a trump to dummy’s king and discard a spade on the K.. but if you do, you will still fail in your contract with a loser in each suit.
A was with West.

West wins A and switches to the K. It would be better to duck the K (a small risk though the chances are that West does not have 7 spades) and win the continuation with the A. Play a heart to the king and discard a diamond on the K. Return to the A (bet you are glad you discarded the diamond not the spade as the diamond was a certain loser whereas the spade was not). Now ruff your spade in dummy. It does not matter if East over-ruffs. They were always going to score a trump trick at some point.

South’s losers were a spade, a trump and A and what was a much more difficult contract than it seemed at first had been made.

Maybe even safer would have been to cash A at trick 2 before playing the club. Duck the spade continuation and win the second spade as above before crossing to K and discard a diamond on K. Ruff a club and then a spade and whether or not East over-ruffs, 10 tricks will be made. That does avoid the case where East had the A and West two singletons.

In any event, It would be a good idea to play two rounds of trumps before you ruff the spade in dummy.

Even quite innocuous contracts need to be played carefully. 4-1 suit breaks are not that uncommon (we know that to our cost at times) and we should try to make our contract despite such breaks without endangering the contract with more normal breaks. Had trumps broken 2-3, the defence could only have scored a spade, A and a over-ruff of the third round of spades.

The above was not the problem shown to you yesterday. Apologies for that. The 4-0 trump break in that, the deal shown below, made it impossible to make 4 (without taking a bizarre view in the trump suit) even if declarer could avoid a heart loser.

 

Down one was as good as South could get, unless the defence crashed the AK on the same trick, which does seem unlikely.

A bidding situation for tomorrow:

 

A nice suit but nothing outside and a singleton in partner’s suit. What action would you take? You are playing Teams.

Richard Solomon

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