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Puppets on a string.

It is rather nice when we can make our opponents do what we want them to do. That is much better than leaving the success or failure of a contract to good fortune or bad defence. The defenders would not like to admit it but they are powerless to stop you making your contract, if you play your cards right.

 

“Thanks, partner” said South on the sight of dummy. The lead was K and South rather wished they were in 3NT. Wishing would not make it so. Therefore, you win A and play a club to the ace (East has singleton queen) and a second club. What then?

Well, what actually happened did not make South very happy. They played A and a second diamond, taking the diamond finesse, which lost. East exited a second spade but when East turned up with two more diamonds, there was no way that South could avoid two heart losers and the contract failed. -100 did not compare well with -630 at the other table.

South could have done a little better by ruffing a spade before tackling diamonds because even if the finesse had lost, the contract would still have been cold as long as East held two (doubleton Q) or three diamonds. However, that was not the case when East started with four diamonds:

 

After drawing trumps, South could lose two red suit tricks but not three. Either a heart could be thrown on a winning diamond (had diamonds broken 3-3) or else the defence would be encouraged to switch to hearts to reduce heart losers to one.

Losing a spade trick!

The winning solution was rather slick. Firstly, declarer can cash A and then K. If the Q fell singleton or doubleton, all South’s worries were over. However, that did not happen. So, South then could call for that little losing spade in dummy,  5 and instead of ruffing, would discard South’s losing diamond.

If East won and returned their small diamond, South would discard a heart. Dummy’s J would win the trick with South now losing just one spade and one heart trick.

If West won the spade and returned a low diamond, declarer would have put up the then high jack. Yet,in reality, West did not have any more diamonds. So, they either had to give South a ruff and discard or play a low heart, thus reducing heart losers to one.

Now, would it not have been nice to have found that play? Two opponents powerless to stop you making your contract.  

Which way forward?

 1NT is 12-14 and 2 a transfer showing 5+spades. Would you take a bid at this point? What is your plan?

Richard Solomon

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