Danger in unexpected places.

When one defender opens the bidding and the other maintains total silence throughout the auction, one would think that if either hand becomes a danger hand that it would be the one with all the high cards. That is not and certainly was not the situation on the deal featured today. The “silent” defender might not have much with which to win the lead but you certainly want to prevent this defender from winning a trick.

 

It was obvious for South to jump to 3NT after their partner’s take-out double of West’s opening bid. West led K and dummy was not all that South had wished for. However, no time for wishes. 9 tricks were not going to be easy.

East follows to trick 1 with 3 (low encouraging). As South, you duck the opening lead. West continues with 4 to East’s J and your A.

Which card do you throw from dummy? Plan the play. If you play a spade next, dummy’s J wins the trick. East-West are playing 5-card majors.

Our declarer started off well but did not spot the danger until it was too late. They won the heart continuation, discarding a club from dummy, and played a spade with J winning the first trick. Next came a club to the king and a second spade, Q scoring as both defenders followed low (no 10 appeared).

So, decloarer tried a diamond to the ace and a second diamond on which West discarded a heart. If East had a third heart, which was quite possible (with J3 doubleton, they may have played J under the king at trick 1), letting East in would prove fatal as the defence would win a diamond, A and a likely three heart tricks.

So, South took K and played a club to the ace and exited a club to West with these cards remaining:

 

The defence had already taken one heart and one club trick. West cashed Q and A and exited to dummy’s K leaving East to take trick 13 with Q. It transpired that had South discarded a diamond from dummy at trick 2, they could have made the last two tricks with a club and a high heart.

That was hard to pick so early in the play but what was not was that the danger hand for declarer was East who could and indeed did have a heart left to give the defence two heart tricks. Had that heart been 8, then declarer would have survived. Not though on this day. These were the four hands:

 

South would have been immediately successful had they played a spade to the jack and then a diamond to their 10. They would then play a second spade (West must duck) and then a club off dummy exiting to West (certainly not letting East’s J hold the trick). However, had the diamond finesse lost, South would have to hope the A was tripleton to score their 9^th trick before the defence took five (no time to duck a club).

After winning the J, declarer could also exit a club to West. If West exits a second club passively, then declarer can play another spade towards dummy which will win. Although South will not have a complete count on the West hand, they will know West started with at least 3 spades, 5 hearts and 3 known clubs. Now, taking the diamond finesse through East becomes more appealing. On a bad day, South would lose to doubleton Q in the West hand but this was no such bad day!

Should all routes have led to 9 tricks? Perhaps so.

The usual decision

 

Do you double, pass or bid on? You have a decent number of high card points and partner has bid to game. 2 was a Weak Jump and 4? Who knows?

We are playing Pairs.

Oh, why do we always have the hearts and they seem to always have the spades?!

Richard Solomon

Go Back View All News Items