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Little Clues can mean a lot…for less experienced players and others.

Today and tomorrow, we will look at a couple of deals where small clues might lead declarers to winning solutions. A little clue is better than no clue at all and takes away the pure randomness of your guess. Hopefully, it would not give you a reason to fail in your contract!

 

1NT rebid was 12-14 hcp. West led 2 (4^TH highest leads) with East contributing J. Over to you?

Yes, North is a little naughty. They should have checked to see if their partnership had a heart fit. No damage this time but a missed major fit on a deal like the above could be critical.

There are one or two fairly obvious things to establish before we start looking for clues. The first is that we are going to win the first trick, terminal in the spade suit if we did not and West held A.

Good News

Then, we need to count our winners, 4 clubs, 2 diamonds and one spade trick. The other two tricks need to come from hearts or diamonds. That’s the good news.

Bad News

On the other side of the ledger is that once we lose the lead, the defence are going to take at least 3 spade tricks along with the A. Let’s hope it is only three spade tricks or else we are not making.

There is only one way we can score 9 tricks without losing the lead. That is by a favourable lie of the diamond suit with an opponent having QJ doubleton or East having a singleton honour and you take a successful second round finesse (you could also take a very daring first round finesse, hoping West has QJx or longer diamonds). The problem with giving up a loser in diamonds is that it gives the defence five quick tricks.

So, we might play at trick 2, a diamond to the ace but both opponents follow with a diamond lower than 6! At least, you have not got to guess whether East has singleton or doubleton jack, most declarers’ nightmare!

Run your "long" suit of winners

So, it is back to the tried-and-true technique of running a side-suit of winners first. You never know, even if that “long suit” is only four cards long. West has no issues as they follow with four small clubs. You throw a diamond and a heart from dummy. There’s no need to disclose your true intentions. Actually, do you even know what they are? You are about to lose the lead and hope!

East’s discard is a small heart. So, what do you know? What is the small clue? Well, you do not actually “know” but it is highly likely that West has four spades (remember, they are just “not allowed” to have a five- card suit. Of course, with more than four and a semi-reasonable hand, they might have overcalled 1. They are also “not allowed” to have a three-card suit as that gives their partner too many!

West also has four clubs: that you know. Therefore, West has 8 cards in the black suits. They are more likely than their partner to have a heart shortage. Play East for the J (since we are now going to play hearts not a second diamond) and therefore a heart to dummy’s king:

 

West will have to duck the first round of hearts and you then play a low heart to 9 and West’s ace.Had East held A, you could still finesse East for the jack on the second round of the suit.

The defence will take their three spade tricks and you can then win Q as your ninth trick.

Not much of a clue on how to play the heart suit but better than coin tossing!

 

 

Little clue number two!

High stakes this time as you are in grand slam. Name me a pair who has a method to identify whether their partnership holds the trump jack and you will be well rewarded! Our declarer on the deal below did not have such a method:

 

West leads 9. Winning the trick is a great idea. East plays J. A nice-looking contract. It’s time to be careful, just in case of problems. What’s your plan?  

p.s. trumps do not break 5-0

Richard Solomon

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