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No Time to Fail.

We can all go down in our contract when finesses fail and suits break badly. Oh, you hear during the post-mortem how you could have end-played one opponent or squeezed them and be like the computer analysis making an overtrick! Another day, perhaps. However, when finesses work (well, mainly!) and suits break nicely, it is not good to record a minus score. Look:

You took on the responsibility of being declarer. How are you going to make at least 9 tricks on the lead of 3 from West? If forced, East plays J at trick 1.

One could imagine all kinds of bad things happen to this contract. Yet, our declarer failed when both major suits broke evenly and the diamonds were just perfectly placed for South. How did that happen?

The road to disaster

Declarer decided to see if West had led away from QJ and played low from dummy. Fair enough but East spoilt that hope by playing J. So, declarer won their ace to play A and J. (This play did not leave much in the way of high cards in their hand...the " declarer stripper!") East won the K and rather surprisingly did not return a spade but played the K. That had to be from at least  KQT..maybe more.

South was dead whether they won this trick or not. South took the ace to play three winning diamonds and then A and a second heart…but these cards remained:

The defence had taken so far two red kings. West, in with K, exited a club to East who still had a spade to put declarer back to dummy with East taking the last two club tricks to defeat the contract. Had declarer ducked the K, East plays a second spade and the defence will take two spades and one trick in every other suit.

Oh, look at all four hands:

Apart from the club suit, how could the cards be kinder for declarer?

What went wrong

It would be normal for South to anticipate a diamond loser. Thus, 4 diamond, 2 spade and 1 club trick still left declarer needing 2 heart tricks. If the heart finesse failed and spades broke 5-3, then this might all prove too hard to make.

The path to disaster was laid when A and AJ were played at tricks 1-3. The heart suit in declarer’s hand was dead, unless a kindly defender helped out.

When East played J at trick 1, it might be wise to duck the first trick. You do not need all 13! If you do, East might surprise you by playing the K. Best to duck that as well. East switches back to spades.

In dummy, you can start on diamonds by playing a diamond to the jack. West would be silly to duck as they could win to attack either black suit. So, the finesse, your finesse, actually worked!

Yet, before getting too excited, there was still hearts to play. You have a choice of winning plays. You could take a finesse though you would not mind East taking the K as they cannot attack clubs. So, a heart to the ace and a second heart has merit.

West would take their K and continues clubs. No reason or time to finesse. Up with the ace to play a second diamond and then J and the news could not be better; 2 spade, 4 hearts, 5 diamonds and a club trick..except the defence had taken a heart, a spade and a club first. Nothing wrong with making 10 tricks. You could have made 12 tricks though in the process have made only 8. Playing for tops usually creates more complete bottoms!

Average is OK!

10 tricks was not too bad a score, a solid 50%.  That was far better than the result the declarer achieved by going down.

Hand of the (Week) Day

I hope you are enjoying these daily hands which started when live play ceased at the start of the first Covid outbreak. Some are quite advanced; others less so. As long as you, the readers, read and, I hope, enjoy them, they will continue.

However, they will continue as “Hand of the (Week) Day”. That is, they will appear on Monday to Friday but not at weekends. Hopefully, you will be engaged in bridge tournaments during one or maybe even both days of a weekend. I will.

So, the next “Hand of the Day” will appear on Monday morning. Talking of which…
Giving and Getting an Overtrick

You are playing a strong no- trump system where 1 could be short. However, from their 3 bid and 4 opening lead, partner appears to have 3 or 4 clubs probably headed by the queen. You win at trick 1. What do you play to trick 2? If you cash your other high club, what about trick 3? (South played 5 then 10).
You are playing Pairs

See you on Monday.

Richard Solomon

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